


In Bloom

by greygerbil



Category: Mass Effect: Andromeda
Genre: Getting Together, Light Undernegotiated Bondage, M/M, One-Night-Stand Turning Into More, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-12
Updated: 2020-11-12
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:15:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 26,462
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27040327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greygerbil/pseuds/greygerbil
Summary: After his husband's disappearance, Evfra never figured he would fall in love again, both too bitter and too busy. If he did, however, he did not expect the target of his affection to be an aloof bureaucrat he's known for years. It takes unusual circumstances for him to find out more about Isamal Akevek, though at times he wishes things had stayed easier.
Relationships: Evfra de Tershaav/Original Male Character(s)
Comments: 11
Kudos: 21
Collections: Fic In A Box





	In Bloom

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tentacledicks](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tentacledicks/gifts).



_Evfra,_

_Thank you for your message. It’s good to see matters of supply are kept in mind while we adjust to these many new developments. From what you have told me of Eos, there are some crops I could see that might withstand the climate, particularly those growing in the Havarl Goldsand Desert. If it’s true that the habitable planets in this system were perfected en masse for angaran use, as the Moshae hypothesised at the Debate last month, the soil is likely to support crops not native to Eos. We have made observations that support this theory moving plants between Havarl and Aya and, to an extent, Voeld._

_As you requested, I will come by the Resistance Headquarters on Sabay at the 14th hour to discuss this matter further._

_May the stars watch over you  
Isamal_

Looking up from the message on his multitool, Evfra glanced at the clock. It was only a few minutes to the 14th hour now, so he knew it would be pointless to start another task. Isamal Akevek was unfailingly punctual.

Stretching, Evfra pushed away from the work station at which he had huddled monitoring incoming data from a Voeld outpost since this morning and checked again that the datapad lying by his side had all the relevant information sent to him by the Nexus. Isamal was a busy man himself, so he’d appreciate a well-prepared, quick meeting. Though Evfra did not know Isamal well, he had known him for a long time, through discussions about food supplies for the troops, quick conversations at functions, and because of their monthly meetings at the Grand Debates, in which the leaders of the angaran cause including Paaran, the Moshae, Evfra, the majors of the capital cities of Havarl and Voeld, as well as leaders of the administrative efforts of housing, engineering, space flight, and food distribution met over vidcom.

Isamal had had a tight grip on the last resort for a good dozen years now and had been involved much longer than even that through his family, who owned extensive lands on all three worlds. It was to their credit that when communal food production had been implemented some forty years ago, no one had had to ask them to share, and they had even become instrumental in pulling angaran farmers together under this cause. However, the Akevek family’s grasp on so much manpower, their generational wealth, their intricate knowledge about the production and distribution process, and the goodwill they had earned from the angaran people made them undeniably a force in their own right.

As expected, the guards led Isamal inside on the dot. It was impossible to miss his entrance, too. His unusual height paired with an aura of calm attention focused in a shrewd, inquisitive gaze made most people stand a little straighter when their eyes met his. Under his rofjinn, Isamal wore long robes, unusual in the cities on Aya these days and old-fashioned for a man only a couple years older than Evfra himself. Still, it looked somehow neither like a costume nor outdated. The emerald colours of his clothes perfectly matched his skin, which was a pale green fading to grey around his face. Especially noticeable against this soft tint was the deep black tattoo covering his forehead, three circles stacked on top of each other surrounded by five thinner outlines each, like ripples a sinking stone left in the water. It was the _eshoan_ , a mark of an old Ayan worship site, and many of the Akevek wore it for its traditional connection to fertility and growth.

_They certainly know how to market themselves._

Whenever Evfra saw Isamal, a small, long-subdued part of his brain noted that he was handsome in a strangely regal way. As usual, he let the thought pass. There was no time for these things nowadays; certainly not for the nervous breakdown that would follow if he had to see one more person who held his heart fall. Evfra liked to think he was sturdy, but even he could only bear the brunt of that impact so often.

Evfra lifted his arm just as Isamal did to greet him with a touch of their wrists.

“Evfra, it is good to see you.”

“Likewise. Follow me.”

He excused the guards with a nod and led Isamal down to the practice range, where his small office was squeezed into a windowless room, the door bordered by weapons racks on the outside. It had been a storage closet to the former occupants of the building, but since he spent all his time in the command central, he’d never felt the need to etch out a large space for himself. Still, some discussions were better had in private.

“I must say, I am happy to find you well,” Isamal said, as the door closed behind them. “I heard you went to the front lines again to aid that human in attacking the Archon. An understandable decision for strategy and morale, but I think I speak for many of us at the Debate when I say that every time you’re in a battle, you make us a little nervous.”

“My lieutenants are not so incompetent that none of them could replace me if necessary,” Evfra answered, though in truth he knew it was not so easy. Sometimes, it felt like he had never done else anything than leading the Resistance, but in its current form, it was only just five years old. Evfra trusted it would hold, but he wasn’t blind enough to think his death might not cause considerable upset. With as little time as the organisation had had to grow stable, it would be almost inevitable. “Don’t worry,” he added. “I have no intention of leading any suicide squads. I rarely even have time to be in the field nowadays.”

“Which is regrettable for your troops, but good for our peace of mind,” Isamal said with a smile, seating himself in the chair Evfra gestured at. “Though it’s not war I came to speak about, if I understood you correctly?”

“Yes. The Nexus has offered us lands on Eos. You may have heard of the planet – we’ve mapped it, but we never considered colonisation because of the strong radiation. The activated Vault has now fixed this problem.”

“What do they get out of this deal?” Isamal asked, still smiling.

Evfra had always valued Isamal’s connection to plain reality.

“First of all, it’s a peace offer. It’s pretty clear they want to prove to us that they haven’t come here to take whole planets without giving us any access to them.” Evfra clasped his hands behind his back. “More importantly, the Nexus still struggles with feeding their people. There are still a considerable amount of them in stasis because of this. They did obtain some information about our food processing techniques, but they would need to work with our scientists to get further – by which I mean _your_ scientists.”

“I’m sure that could be arranged if its agreed upon.”

“Paaran has already said she will consider it, yes.” In all matters of dealings with the Nexus, Paaran, the Moshae, and him still made the executive decisions. “We would like a foothold on Eos and besides, we have no reason to want to see them starve.”

Though Evfra was not foolish enough to let go off all his doubts about the newcomers yet, his heart was not made of ice. It had to hurt that many were still waiting for friends and family to join them in their new life and not knowing if you had food tomorrow was always a heavy burden. He guessed all angara knew too much about living with constant uncertainty to not have some empathy in that regard, at least, even if it might not be enough to accept the aliens with open arms.

“Do you think that if they run into a real shortage, Paraan and the Moshae would offer our assistance?”

Evfra wondered if Isamal was interested in what his department would have to be prepared for, or if he was feeling out the greater current of their foreign politics strategy. Perhaps both.

“Yes,” Evfra said honestly. “As long as it doesn’t lead to angara suffering. For now, the Nexus are our allies. Without their Pathfinders, we will be hard-pressed to make use of Meridian, too.”

“Then it makes sense to get our hands on as much land as possible, anyway, just in case we’ll have more mouths to feed.” Isamal inclined his head. “As for the aliens, I assume they will also, eventually, need to test out which of the local plants they can use – and perhaps they have brought something that is helpful to us as well. I see the use if they are to stay.”

Evfra nodded his head.

“I will provide you the data on the land they have staked out on Eos. However, if you have time, I would also like to take you there to see the place for yourself. I’m not a great judge of soil.”

From how his eyes widened, Evfra figured that he had managed to surprise Isamal for once, a true novelty as far as he could remember. Isamal had that settled serenity that angara sometimes developed with time and wisdom, where a lack of emotional outbursts was not the sign of strained composure, but of tempered fire. Evfra respected it, even if he did at times find it excessively grating, especially when he got into an argument with him at the Grand Debates.

“To Eos?” Isamal echoed.

“You can send one of your people, too, but I’d rather have your opinion. Besides, we’re slowly acquainting the Nexus with our leadership.”

“I’m just an administrator, I hold no office.”

Evfra gave him an unimpressed glance.

“No one elected me, either,” he said. “Let us hope that at some point in the future, we have more stable systems. Here in private, I think you can put humility aside.”

“Direct as always,” Isamal said with an amused huff of breath. “I would be interested to see where we expand to. Besides, I haven’t had a chance to meet any of our new neighbours yet.”

Isamal spent most of his time on Aya, as he didn’t have much reason to travel to Voeld or Havarl unless something was going seriously awry with his fields or factories. Since the kett liked to attack strategic targets, most food paste production was handled on Aya, with the raw ingredients flown in from the other two planets.

“They’re a diverse bunch, as I’m sure you’ve read. More helpful than the kett so far. Case in point...” Evfra handed him the datapad he had prepared. “This is the more detailed information they just sent ahead. I can’t make too much sense of it, but I’m sure these readings are going to tell you a lot about whether it’s worth our time.”

“I will look through this tonight. When do you want to leave?”

“As soon as possible. There’s an unusual lull of activity for the Resistance at the moment and I want to make use of it.”

Isamal got to his feet.

“You will hear from me by tomorrow.” He nodded at Evfra. “It will be interesting to work with you more closely, even if it’s just for a short time. None of us but Paaran and the Moshae usually have the honour.”

Evfra was not quite sure what to make of that comment. Did he want something from the Resistance? Maybe it was just part of Isamal’s generally polite approach.

“I look forward to working with you, too. Though I should warn you that I’m not sure that Paaran and the Moshae would consider this situation a privilege,” he answered flatly.

Isamal chuckled. “I’ll make my own judgement.”

-

Isamal’s answer arrived as announced and by the day after that, Evfra had made arrangements with Prodromos. They boarded a ship alongside fifteen Resistance soldiers the morning after. With few kett patrolling the sector lately, Evfra had told Isamal to expect a quiet flight and, whenever passing by the small cabin in which he had been accommodated, Evfra saw that Isamal chose to fill that time working on a myriad of lists and documents that filled several screens. You could have thought he was a maths professor by the dizzying array of numbers and formulas that filled them to every corner.

For once, fate did not twist his words and the journey remained uneventful. Evfra’s soldiers sat around the hangar bay between the two ground speeders they had brought and the rattle of many-sided dice sounded up to the walkway above. When they weren’t playing, they cheered each other on as they had friendly sparring competitions. Evfra let them be and spread himself out in the comms terminal to work.

It was late in the evening by Ayan time when he walked into the kitchen and found Isamal already sitting at the table with a bowl of food paste and a glass of water before him. Evfra nodded at him as he grabbed a food paste container from the stack in the corner and emptied it onto a plate. As he did, he noticed Isamal’s gaze following his hands. He smiled when he noticed Evfra looking back.

“A bad habit,” he said. “I always have to see what people eat.”

“When I travel, I just eat what the soldiers get,” Evfra said, sitting down opposite of him.

“Really?” Isamal asked, swirling his spoon in the paste. “I did not figure that people would deal with that if they don’t have to. The Resistance’s rations are the best nutrient mix we have managed to so far, but the taste ended up regrettably bland.”

“Can’t disagree there. It would be a hassle to take extra for me since almost nobody else likes the flavours I eat, though,” Evfra said with a shrug.

Isamal lowered his spoon.

“Well, now I’m curious. You should tell me, lest we take it out of the line-up eventually, if it is so rare.”

“It’s not. Resistance soldiers don’t eat it, but children do all the time, I’m told,” Evfra said with a snort. “It’s several flavours. All that are induced with over ten percent of fruit juice.”

Isamal gave a short laugh.

“I wouldn’t have guessed,” he admitted. “But in that case, the requisition food must be torture.”

“It’s probably better for me.”

It _was_ pretty dreary, Evfra could not help but agree, moving the grey paste around his plate with his spoon. Complaining about that would have been more childish than his food choices, though.

“That’s true. I could probably stand to eat a few of these rations, but I like experimental food better,” he said, pointing his spoon at the contents of his bowl, which looked rougher than most food paste Evfra had seen. “My siblings think I should be eating properly processed meals, but I get bored quickly of the known flavours and am lucky enough to sit at the well.”

“Some people like variety. My husband used to complain that I always wanted the same ‘inedible’ sweet stuff, too.”

Evfra gripped the spoon tighter as soon as the words were out of his mouths. Talking about his taste, something inconsequential he rarely thought about these days, had called back the memory of Thoran’s teasing grin. Small details like this often retrieved images he’d tried to keep securely locked away, but why would he be sharing them with Isamal? Something about that steady voice and open expression – it made it too easy to talk. It was a trap Evfra had seen others fall into at functions and even during official meetings before.

 _Why would it matter?_ he asked himself angrily. They all knew he had lost family. He just usually omitted the details to evade questions that hurt to answer.

It seemed that Isamal realised that Evfra had said a little more than he’d meant to. He pretended to be busy with his food for a moment.

“You are not in any danger of unwanted comments now,” Isamal said, instead of prodding for more information. “They can be vexing, but isn’t it lonely like this?”

At least it sounded more like curiosity than the start of a lecture. Evfra realised his solitude made him almost pathologically interesting. Outsiders existed among angara, but they came in groups like those on Kadara. Akksul, too, had collected his Roekaar around himself when he had split.

“I haven’t shirked my duty to the community,” Evfra just said.

“No one could ever accuse you of that. You just don’t seem to want to be part of it.”

“And yet I spend most of my days surrounded by people.” Evfra locked eyes with him, ready to shove the topic of conversation aside with force if need be. “Besides, if we’re discussing unusual setups, I should say you’re the first patriarch I’ve met who doesn’t have true children.”

The official selection of a patriarch or matriarch of a family was a traditional Ayan rite that had never been practiced on Voeld or Havarl quite the same way. A holdover from a tribal time, the patriarch or matriarch would usually be called on to make final decisions that affected the whole clan or judge over internal conflicts, as well as speak with others of their own standing to end fights or broker marriages between families. Considering the angaran family-centred mindset, it was usually necessary to prove you had had a hand in raising some true children into reasonably well-behaved members of society to get this position. Isamal had managed to get around that somehow – which Evfra had no issue with, but it was a good way to distract from himself right now.

“You’re right,” Isamal admitted. “I have helped raise my nephews and nieces and some younger cousins, but so far I haven’t been lucky enough to be a true father. You know what they say on Aya: You can have business sense, or sense for everything else.”

The somewhat melancholic tone, which did not come without a self-depreciating smile, made Evfra guess that whatever romances Isamal had had in hopes of producing his own branch of the family had probably fallen apart before he had gotten to the stage which involved making or adopting babies. He’d never heard of him losing a partner to the kett or some other misfortune, at least.

“And business sense is very important in your family,” Evfra mused.

In that light, the appointment was sensible.

Isamal smiled. “Perhaps a little more so than in others, yes.”

“From what I’ve been told, you’ve been leading your family’s business for substantially longer than you have been the patriarch?”

His grasp on Ayan politics before the arrival of the Resistance was admittedly hazy, especially where it didn’t connect with the issues he dealt with directly, but he remembered hearing rumours to that effect.

“Don’t say that in front of my uncle. I may have done some work here and there, but he remembers the date when he handed the reins of the business to me _very_ well.”

Evfra snorted. “I see you’ve practiced diplomacy within your family, too.”

“Otherwise, I’d hardly be patriarch,” Isamal said good-naturedly.

Evfra found himself curious what machinations had gone on behind the closed doors of the Akevek household, but before he could ask, his multitool informed him of an incoming call from the Moshae with a quick bleep. It was doubtful Isamal would have shared these secrets, anyway. Family affairs could get even dirtier than politics. This confirmed his suspicion that Isamal had made a calculated grab for the role, however, instead of falling into it through some happenstance as many thought he must have, since he was such an unusual choice.

“I have to get back to work. I will see you tomorrow,” he said, picking up his plate.

-

The next morning, the mayor of Prodromos, August Bradley, greeted Evfra and Isamal among the collection of houses that this latest colony was made up of and handed them off to the scientists. On the way from the outpost to the designated land, both Isamal and Evfra were busy looking out of the speeder’s windows. Evfra had visited Eos once before, but only briefly, to smooth feathers after Akksul’s averted attack. He’d spent his time in Prodromos and had mostly seen Eos through window-glass rectangles. Jaal had sent videos and descriptions during the Pathfinder’s stint here, but Evfra had made the experience that very little but being there in person could really give an impression of places such as this. The wide reaches of fine sand and cracked ground, the giant spires and cliffs of stone, all under an endless, cloudless sky raced past them as they followed the scientists’ vehicle in the Resistance speeder.

“What do you think of this new haven?” Isamal asked, turning away from the view to look at Evfra.

“It reminds me of Voeld,” Evfra said slowly.

Isamal made a thoughtful sound. “It does seem like an inverted mirror image. Would you be tempted to switch locations?” he asked, somewhat playfully.

Evfra wrinkled his nose.

“No. I can barely deal with the heat on Aya.”

Isamal shook his head. “You are just like the plants from Voeld. Somehow, if you take the cripplingly low temperatures away, they only barely cling on instead of enjoying the comfort.”

“Frustrated?” Evfra noted, with a twitch at the corner of his mouth.

Isamal’s expression turned into a smile again. “A lot of the roots and mushrooms are very nutritious. They would be helpful for our food supply if we could make them grow in places where there is soft earth instead of frozen ground and ice. Maybe now that the Vault will temper Voeld a little, they can slowly adapt...”

“Never thought I’d hear an off-worlder praise Voeld roots.”

“To be fair, I don’t chew them raw like you people do,” Isamal noted.

“You’re missing out.” Evfra crossed his arms over his chest. “Those roots... we’d always go back over the fields after harvest and dig out only the small bits and pieces that didn’t come out of the earth when we pulled the plants. Didn’t dare to take even a handful of the big ones from the crates we sent to the port so that we’d get proper rations back. I’m glad we had a system that worked, but the way our people have lived seems pitiful sometimes.”

“Were you a farmer?” Isamal asked, surprised.

“No,” Evfra shook his head, stopped himself. Since he’d already revealed to Isamal that he’d been married, it probably did not matter if he said a little more. “My husband’s true mother and her two brothers worked some land. We helped out, but I never learned as much about it as I should have.”

“I see. Well, we might be able to tackle these problems soon. Havarl is already showing very promising results now that it is stabilised. Eos won’t grow many plants, but there are a handful that I suspect might have a high yield here,” Isamal said. He brightened a little as he spoke. “Imagine food distribution how it must have been in the old times. People just cooking with produce at home!”

“It seems strange,” Evfra said, somewhat bemused by Isamal’s rare burst of enthusiasm, but having little difficulty understanding it. They had been driven so far away from even the simple pleasures of their ancestors. If people had fresh plants these days, it was only because they might grow some in pots in their houses and small lots in their back gardens. Anything more elaborate than that was subject to a tithe for communal collection. People bowed to it because there was basically no other system but to grind everything into paste that assured the harvests would feed all angara, but it was not ideal. Trade still existed, of course, but trade had to look for profit, and the kett made it very difficult to keep up routes. Also, you needed money to afford luxuries and especially higher-paying jobs had died off as the pressure of the kett invasion and the deterioration on Voeld and Havarl mounted. Paraan tried not to catastrophize on the grand stage, but Evfra knew from private conversations with her that the economy had been on its knees for years.

The Nexus actually helped with that, too, providing a new market. Evfra hoped that they would be able to get a fair exchange from the relationship without becoming reliant on it. That, however, was a concern for another day. Now the vehicle in front of them slowed next to a wide, empty lot of land.

-

Isamal was swallowed by a cluster of human and turian scientists as soon as they got out of the speeder. Evfra directed his men to follow them, only separating a few to reinforce the small militia that Prodromos had sent for their protection, who were spreading out and securing the empty land. The colony was mostly made up of biologists, archaeologists, meteorologists, and all manner of other academic specialisations, and seemingly no one who could hold a gun, but Evfra appreciated that they had tried to arm themselves, considering what had happened during their last couple of attempts here on Eos.

Evfra wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. In the distance, the air danced with heat. Though the radiation levels had eased, the sun still burned the land. Even having seen things bloom in Voeld’s snow, it was hard to imagine anything could grow here – but that was why he had brought an expert.

As he waited, Evfra considered the perimeter of the land. In their back, there was an impressive rock face that protected both from the heated, sandy winds and from attacks that might come that way. There was a small hollow in the stone wall which would be a good spot for huts of farmers who kept these grounds. Of course, the lands weren’t massive, but they were a fair part of what little the Nexus people had managed to stake out on Eos so far.

Turning, he noticed that Isamal’s group had dispersed. He was kneeling on the ground and digging in the sand, while the scientists seemed to be busy collection soil probes and handing them to Evfra’s soldiers, standing dispersed in different corners of the lot. Automatically, Evfra pivoted to join Isamal. With this being unknown territory, he’d rather not have his most important guest walking alone. According to Jaal, even with the kett beaten back, there was all manner of aggressive wildlife on Eos.

“Promising so far?” he asked, as he’d reached his side.

“Yes.” Isamal saw Evfra’s brows raise and smiled, burrowing his fingers between the gravel they stood on. “It might not look like much, but this rocky ground seems to be exactly the sort in which we grow bushweed grain. I hadn’t even considered that because it’s so unusual to find it outside of the Goldsand Desert.”

“Good to know.”

Evfra would have written this part of the lands off and he doubted the soil readings of a bunch of small rocks had been promising, so it was a good thing Isamal had come to have a look himself. He glanced down at the pebbles, trying to imagine plants growing between them. They exploded into grey dust as a bullet struck the ground a couple of feet next to Isamal.

 _Direction – the cliff._ Evfra moved to cover Isamal with his body before he’d even raised his eyes. Way up on the crest there were small figures black against the sky.

_Snipers. Kett?_

How would they have known about this? Was it a coincidence? These were always hard to believe in.

Evfra made a sign at his soldiers, first directing their attention, then an abrupt sideways motion of his hand, telling them to stay back. They had no way to fire clear shots at their attackers and the snipers had them in their sights. With so many scientists and Isamal, there was no way they could get everybody to safety while guaranteeing no civilian casualties.

“Should we get to cover?”

Isamal’s voice was suddenly very small. He seemed to have noticed halfway through the question there really wasn’t much that could be construed as such in about a mile around them, aside from the speeders, which they would never reach before they were gunned down. Evfra knew how to focus his bioelectricity shield and extend it to another person, but it would not hold up against a sustained volley of sniper fire that long.

“Duck behind me. If we move, it won’t end well. But they’re not shooting anymore now, though they have a clear line of sight,” Evfra said under his breath. “They don’t want us dead. They want something else.”

The answer to his question came racing round the cliff in high gear, flinging sand and rocks into the air. The ground crunched under their wheels as they came closer, forming a wall between Isamal and Evfra and the others with their boxy, unwieldy cars. Evfra made an attempt to go for the pistol at his belt, but before his fingers were around the hilt, there were ten guns pointed at him. Human or asari, he surmised, from the shape of them under their mismatched armour pieces. That was all the time he had to think before Isamal and him were grabbed and flung into the backseat of the middle car. Isamal was squeezed against the window as somebody pressed Evfra’s head down against his thighs, ripping off his gun and the Firaan at his belt. His multitool was torn from his wrist, and someone reached over him, planting a knee in his back, to take Isamal’s off as well. The door was thrown shut.

Evfra immediately sat and tried the handle, but of course the door was locked. Between them and the front of the car, there was a metal partition that looked too sturdy to dent with his bare hands. Evfra cursed under his breath, but held back from kicking the metal to release his pent-up fury as he looked at Isamal beside him. The colour had drained from his face so thoroughly he was almost completely ashen.

“Did you get hurt?” Evfra asked.

“N-no, I don’t think so.”

Isamal checked his wrist, where presumably they had grabbed him to drag him into the car. Evfra reached over to turn his shaking hand and inspected the marks.

“Can you move it?”

Isamal tried, succeeded without wincing.

“There will be bruises, but probably nothing worse,” he said quietly, letting go. “Try not to panic. As I said, if they wanted us dead, we would be.”

Through the window, he saw Eos racing by. A rocky slope threw Isamal and him against each other again as the car jumped and shuddered. Evfra grabbed on to the edges of the seat to stay in it.

“What do we do now?” Isamal asked, wide-eyed.

“Nothing,” Evfra answered honestly. “We have to see what they have planned for us. They might keep us as hostages or they might torture us.”

“Torture?” Isamal’s voice hitched up a notch.

“For information or for fun. We’ll find out when we learn who they are.” Evfra watched the landscape flit by, his mind going just as fast. “Stay close, but let me talk. Don’t try to interrupt if they get rough with me. It’s better if I have their attention,” he added under his breath, to make sure their captors didn’t immediately know their strategy.

They had the disadvantage that Isamal was likely no use in a fight. Getting beaten up would not be a great way to for Evfra to stay fit for an escape attempt, but using Isamal as a buffer was not an option to him. He was a civilian and the Resistance was there to protect them.

“If you say so...” Isamal murmured, though Evfra could see he was plainly disturbed by the suggestion of letting Evfra take the brunt of punishment. It spoke for him, but changed nothing.

-

Evfra tried to calculate how long they had been driving and to where, but Eos gave very little in the way of anchor points. Had he grown up here, Evfra was sure he could have told one mountain from the next, much like he had easily navigated the many hidden paths of Voeld, but as it was, he had little to go on. The best he could do was commit some of the greater structures to memory to map a vague way back. Next to him, Isamal only stared at the metal partition, looking terribly lost. Evfra wondered if he should try to calm him down, but came up empty with a way to do so. This situation was bad. Fear was not an unreasonable reaction. Evfra was afraid, too.

When the car slowed and the door opened, a dozen guns were again pointed at them. Evfra raised his hands and nodded at Isamal to do the same as he climbed out of the back of the car.

They stood among a scattering of the white prefab houses that the settlers favoured. Squinting into the blinding light, Evfra counted nine units and a canopied station where another couple of these bulky, snub-nosed cars with cannons on top stood covered in a thin layer of dust.

“The one with the scars! That’s the boss of the Resistance,” a woman’s voice said.

“We have that one? I figured we’d have to make the chief come for this asshole first.”

A man nudged Isamal with the mouth of an assault rifle. Isamal shivered, but stayed silent.

“Weren’t we going to negotiate with him, Callum?” said a wispy voice in the back.

“Negotiations will go more smoothly with a gun in his face,” the same man answered.

With his free hand, he took off his helmet and revealed rust-coloured hair and a square face that looked too red for his white neck. A reaction to too much sun in the pale humans, Evfra remembered distantly from APEX training.

“What do you want to talk about?” Evfra asked, eager to take the attention off Isamal.

If he was only here to put pressure on Evfra, they might as well threaten him directly.

“Did I ask you?” Callum gave back.

“We both know you’re going to have to talk to me eventually, so you might as well do it.”

Callum threw an angry look over his shoulder in the direction from which the wispy voice had spoken.

“We don’t have to do tell you shit, squid.”

“Alright,” Evfra said with a shrug. “I doubt a common bandit would have anything interesting to say, anyway.”

He’d only planned to needle a little, but to his surprise, Callum’s face grew even more red as he took two steps towards him.

“We’re not _bandits_!” he burst out. “We had a home! You fucked our whole life here!”

Callum was in his face and grabbed him by the throat. He threw an imperative glance over Evfra shoulder, but it took some shuffling before someone stepped forward to grab Evfra’s arms so he could not defend himself. At the same time, voices rose from the small crowd gathered around the cars:

“Stop this shit!”

“Callum, cut it out.”

 _Interesting._ Evfra guessed he probably had a little authority or perhaps just the biggest mouth in this ragtag group, but they did not treat him like a leader. In fact, if he were, Evfra was sure they would have been a more forwardly aggressive bunch in general.

Maybe there was more information he could get out of Callum.

“Did I? I don’t even know who you fools are,” he said, his voice breathless from the fingers squeezing his throat, but a derisive smile securely in place.

“We had a good thing going on Kadara before you angara had to get involved! You helped the Pathfinder! She had an angara with her! I’m sure that bitch who’s in charge now talks to you, too. You squids always stick together. Now the Nexus is building colonies!” He spat. “We’re not going to prison on the Nexus because of your fucking politics. Either the angara help us get Kadara back, or we’re getting a nice piece of land on one of your worlds.”

Of course it was about Kadara. The day that cursed planet would not keep falling on his feet was the day Evfra laid down his mantle as Resistance leader entirely.

Evfra took a shallow breath. If he slipped up in a later torture session or interrogation because he was angry, this Callum guy could turn out to be either very useful or very dangerous. He had no choice but to roll the dice. The rage growling in his chest did not make it difficult.

“I don’t see why I or any of our leadership need to talk to the Nexus’s refuse.”

Callum swung his fist and hit him hard in the stomach. Evfra doubled over as far as he could with someone still wrenching his arms behind his back. Bile rose into his throat, but it had been worth it to pick the fight. He knew a lot more now.

However, he was not the only being restrained, as two humans shot out of the crowd to hold Callum back now.

“What the fuck are you doing?”

“Settle down, Callum, you idiot. You know Yuko has to make a decision on this.”

Evfra raised his eyes just enough to meet Callum’s as he was dragged away and showed him a smug grin. Callum almost wound out of his captors’ arms as Evfra and Isamal were herded towards one of the white buildings.

-

The house had clearly not originally been constructed as a prison. The empty room they were brought into had benches and tables with disconnected electrical outlets and water taps, all screwed to the ground, as Evfra would have expected in a mobile laboratory. Their door had a small window from which one could have watched dangerous experiments unfold, but Evfra figured the guards would make good use of it, too.

“Are you alright?!” Isamal asked, as soon as the door had closed behind them.

He had yet to regain colour in his face. Evfra wondered if he would fall unconscious. He sat down and so prompted Isamal to do the same, as he’d hoped he would.

“Fine. It was just a punch. That man clearly has a lot of pent-up anger. I can use that.”

Isamal shook his head. “I understand what you are doing – but Evfra, this is too dangerous!”

“All of this is dangerous,” Evfra just said. “How are you holding up?”

Isamal opened his mouth and closed it without speaking. “They must have an informant within Prodromos,” he said quietly, instead of an answer. “They said this was about me. How else would they have known I was coming?”

“Very likely,” Evfra admitted.

He didn’t press his actual question. The answer to that was plainly written on Isamal’s wide-eyed face, his shaking hands.

“I could have avoided this! If I’d stayed with the group, they may not have-“

“If my soldiers had stayed with you instead of going after the scientists, or if I hadn’t left all of you to go scouting on my own, we may not have given them an opening, either,” Evfra said resolutely. “It’s done.”

Isamal looked devastated, but nodded his head.

“I hate the thought of being leverage,” he said quietly.

“We share that.”

Evfra leaned against the wall, angrily tapping his fingers against the ground. There had to be a way out.

-

“What is taking them so long?”

The narrow windows near the ceiling had allowed Evfra and Isamal to watch the sunlight move in slim rectangles across the ground and then vanish, leaving them with only the diffuse glow of dusk. Nothing else had happened but a couple of guards glancing through the window in the door every now and then.

“At a guess, I’d say they’re scared and indecisive,” Evfra answered. “Did you see how little housing they have? The patrol here has been irregular, too, when it would make sense to permanently station some guards at our door.” He glanced up to see if one of them was looking in right now, but it seemed they were alone. “They’re just a handful of Nexus Exiles. Catching you was going to be their big break. They could have expected swift negotiations if had only been you, but we’d have known there’s very little reason for them to kill you. You’re worth more alive. Considering that, we wouldn’t have had to rush a military response. We likely would have taken it slow to secure your safety, maybe would have tried to get a covert team in to rescue you while we talked to the kidnappers.” He laid his head to the side. “Having me here could be an advantage, but it’s also dangerous. The Resistance’s response is likely going to be risky, but harder and faster. My lieutenants will know it could be the Exile’s best option just to kill me.”

“What? Why? You’re also a hostage!” Isamal exclaimed.

“They’d still have a hostage,” Evfra said, pointing at Isamal. “If they’re angry enough at the angara, killing the leader of our military might be its own reward. We’d have to regroup.” He frowned, unhappy to scare Isamal more, but not wanting to leave him in the dark. “We have to prepare for the possibility that they’ll shoot me, send evidence of the corpse to Paraan, then relocate with you and start negotiations. It would even make them look like a credible threat. So far, only we know that they’re not very many of them.”

“Stars... yes, I suppose you’re right.”

Isamal rubbed his hands against his thighs. He looked like he was about to cry. Evfra had never seen him like this, but as an Aya native who had a permanent permit for residence because of his position, Isamal had likely never even been in a kett shoot-out. This was all new to him.

“They might not be clever enough to think of that,” Evfra said, in a feeble attempt to soothe Isamal’s nerves.

However, they might drag them out for questioning soon and Evfra worried about that. If he was too badly wounded, he wouldn’t even have a slim chance of getting out of here. Was there some opportunity he could create before that happened?

_Maybe._

It was a long shot, but Callum had been one of the guards that would rush past their window and then back out the main door of the building.

Evfra waited until he heard footsteps outside. At first it was a woman, but she disappeared again. Maybe twenty minutes later, Callum pushed up against the window.

Evfra looked up at him.

“Seems like they don’t like your plans, Callum. Or what else is taking you so long?”

“We’re coming for you, just you wait.”

“Oh, I’m sure.” Evfra got to his feet, even under Isamal’s dismayed gaze, which projected the loudest wordless begging Evfra had ever witnessed. “I had a feeling you weren’t going to be able to back up your bark. You ran away from the Nexus, now you’re leaving this to the professionals, too. It’s a pattern.”

The door shook as Callum kicked it.

“Shut your mouth. You’ll see what professionals can do to you.”

“I might. I know I won’t see you there. Pity. Would have loved to take you one on one, but I know how it is with men like you.”

“Fuck off, I know what you’re trying here,” Callum snapped.

“Don’t flatter yourself, I’m just passing time. We both know you’ll stay on that side of the door like the good pet you are.”

Evfra sat down again and then glanced sideways, as if even the empty wall was more interesting than Callum. After a few moments of silence, Callum’s heavy steps thundered down the hallway.

Hopefully, Callum would get somebody to open this door and have Evfra taken before his superiors before they had finished planning. He might be able to make a deal with this Yuko person. It wasn’t much, but it was something. From in here, with no access to anyone, he was powerless.

“I really wish you wouldn’t keep antagonising that human,” Isamal said, subdued. “You’re going to get hurt.”

“Unfortunately, he’s the only pressure point I have.”

Steps returned, more numerous this time. When Callum threw open the door, three other humans stood behind him. Evfra looked down the barrels of their guns.

“See, I can play with you if you really want to. We’re just not doing it by your rules, squid.”

Evfra let his gaze swerve from right to left. Friends of Callum’s, he would bet. The rest of his co-conspirators hadn’t seemed so eager to beat their hostages to a pulp. That meant that likely no one outside this house knew what was happening here right now.

_What a fucking moron._

It was all Evfra could do not to smile.

“No, please...”

Isamal’s desperation sounded as real as it probably was and though Evfra felt for him, he was glad that it underlined his own feigned reluctance very well. He allowed the humans to pull him into the hallway.

Three guns were still pointed at him as they closed the door behind him, but Callum had drawn a knife. He dragged it across the folds at Evfra’s neck, leaving a slim red line.

“Let’s see how-”

Evfra didn’t let him finish. Ten seconds – that how long it took him these days to collect all the bioelectric energy shivering over an angara’s skin. When he released it with a crackling burst, the humans were thrown against every wall in the narrow corridor. One managed to get a shot off, but it hit the ceiling, as she was already falling. Evfra sprang forward, tore her pistol from her, and stepped hard on the her, then her hand for good measure, making sure to stomp down until he heard bones crack. Another man grabbed his leg and Evfra shot his arm first and then his shoulder. The third tried getting to the door. His body fell a few feet before it, arm still outstretched, after Evfra had hit him four times in the back.

Callum cursed and hacked at his hip with his knife, but only managed a glancing flesh wound. Evfra shot him in the chest. He might recover if they found him quickly. Evfra couldn’t say he cared whether they would.

He kneecapped the woman to be sure she’d stay down and took the access card dangling off Callum’s belt, his omnitool, and his rifle before he opened the door with the card.

Inside, Isamal was on his feet, mouth open but speechless. Evfra figured he had been watching through the window.

“Come,” he told him and pressed the assault rifle into his hands.

“I don’t know how to use this!”

“Do you know where the trigger is?”

“Well, of course-”

“Good. It’s for when someone is close enough that you can’t miss them. Just run and stay with me.”

To make the point, he simply grabbed Isamal by the hand and dragged him along, readying his pistol before he swiped the card again to open the door. There was no one stationed in front of the house, but a woman carrying a crate a dozen feet away almost dropped it on her toes as she saw them.

Evfra shot her in the stomach before she could reach for her gun, but with that noise, doors opened all around them. Once more, Evfra collected his bioelectricity, which was still flagging from the last burst, to project a shield around the two of them. He had one advantage here: he had a goal in mind and they did not know it yet.

As he moved forward, he ducked behind the houses for cover, but there was a distance between the last building and the make-shift parking lot – only ten or fifteen feet, but it looked gigantic to Evfra now. _No choice._ He hissed “cars” into Isamal’s ear and pushed him before him, so that when his bioelectricity inevitably ran out, his body would still be between the enemies and his civilian charge.

Under a hail of gunfire, they reached the canopied stand of the vehicles. The armoured cars had _M35_ plastered over their grey sides in black and red and Evfra wished he’d known at all what that meant for their specs. At least a door opened and the lights activated as Evfra pressed Callum’s card against the small rectangle by the handle. He shoved Isamal inside on the driver’s side, but before he could tell him to climb over, another shot hit and finally broke through his bioelectricity, grazing his biceps. Cursing, he turned, just in time for someone to grab his face and slam the back of his head against the doorframe. Pain exploded from the back of his skull and his nose, where the palm had dug in hard. Evfra tore up his leg, his knee digging in between the attacker’s legs. The man’s grasp wavered as he gasped.

A second human approached suddenly from the corner of his eyes. However, her omniblade did not aim for him, as Evfra’s body was still covered by that of the writhing man; she was trying to get at Isamal.

As Evfra had instructed, he fired his gun, the noise so loud and close by it left Evfra’s whole head ringing; however, his shaking hands made him miss her entirely. Evfra fired a round into the stomach of the man he was dealing with as he threw himself sideways. Her omniblade hit the same arm that was already bleeding from the bullet wound, adding a deep, long gash down to the elbow.

He shot at her leg and kicked her away from the car, fired a good dozen bullets at her and in the direction of the others approaching, not terribly concerned with accuracy anymore. As he’d hoped, they dove for cover, and he threw the door shut and rolled over the tapered front of the car, feeling the motor purr alive. He jumped in on the other side.

“Should I – drive?” Isamal stammered.

He looked amazed enough that he’d managed to make the car start, still staring at the lit-up dashboard. Evfra looked down at his arm, which was bleeding profusely, tasted iron on his lips from his bleeding nose. He gritted his teeth. The pain was too great to ignore and it would be hard to steer through it.

“Can you?”

“I think so. But where?”

“West, this way. We have to get out first. Worry about the rest later.”

Evfra gestured vaguely at the left with his gun. Just as he did, the door on his side opened again. Evfra rammed his elbow into the man’s face, shot him in the gut, wrenched his hand off the car and shoved his body into that of the woman behind him. “Now!” he called as he slapped the door shut.

Isamal put his foot down.

The car lurched and rocked as it sprang to life and for a moment Evfra was worried Isamal had lost control over it already – angara did not have many speeders with wheels. However, he brought it around to a straight line and let it roar away from the collection of prefab houses into the desert.

Evfra took a deep breath, but sat up straight the moment he looked out of the window again. A car was already gathering speed behind them. Apparently, someone had had brain enough between their ears and had realised that Isamal and Evfra might make it off the parking lot, consequently already manning a vehicle themselves.

“Company,” he said tightly, securing the pistol and tossing it down between his feet, grabbing the assault rifle instead. Did this have enough ammo left to bother an armoured car? These things had cannons, too, but Evfra doubted he’d figure out how to use the one on their vehicle before the humans readied their own. He could only hope they were still trying to take them alive.

Isamal was stubbornly staring ahead, hands clawing the steering wheel, doing his best to keep the car on course. They jumped over an edge and Evfra clung to the dashboard as they landed with teeth-rattling force on an elevated ridge. Isamal gasped next to him, but the car stayed on all wheels.

Their pursuers had taken the same jump and were now pulling up next to them. Evfra readied the gun, trying to figure out how to open the window.

“Hold on tight,” Isamal said.

Evfra had just enough time to follow the order. Isamal tore the car sideways and into the other vehicle. The car, which had been closer to the edge than their own, flipped several times as it went down the side, its wheels spinning uselessly for traction in the air. Isamal just managed to turn them from the brink, sparing them the same fate.

“How did you know that would work?” Evfra asked, astonished.

“This car barely controls at all and they’re driving the same one,” Isamal said, sounding no less shocked than Evfra. “On our way here, I just thought they were bad drivers when we were flung all over the place, but...”

Evfra snorted, despite everything.

“Good work,” he said, looking back. The other car was rapidly moving out of their field of vision, a speck down in the sand.

However, they were still driving one of their vehicles. He took the omnitool he’d stolen from Callum out of his pocket and latched it around his wrist.

“I’m going to wipe the car so we can’t be tracked.”

“You know how to do that?”

“I’m not a technician by any stretch of the imagination, but I’ve had them teach me some brute-force techniques. This thing doesn’t look too sophisticated.”

As he’d hoped, the omnitool interfaced with the car immediately. Evfra reset it to defaults and then, with a small muti-use decryption key, pried the system open until the car, which called itself a Mako, had forgotten both the name and its own serial number. It was just a motor on wheels now and Evfra knew that meant the cannon was probably dead weight, but that was better than being followed.

“I didn’t know we had anything that worked on Nexus technology,” Isamal said.

“They’ve been around for long enough. I made it a priority since they landed on Kadara.”

There was no map tool for the area – would have been too much luck, he supposed –, so Evfra pulled the omnitool off, opened the window, and let the headwind drag it from his hand.

“Hopefully, trying to track that thing should keep them from our tail for long enough that we can lose them.”

“Yes...” Isamal was still staring at the path ahead, but Evfra saw him glancing over briefly. When he caught Evfra’s gaze, he said, quietly: “You’re bleeding.”

“Probably not bleeding out.”

Though he had to admit his side of the car looked like a murder had taken place. It would probably be a good idea to try to get this stopped. The bullet had hit him at an angle and not gotten stuck in his flesh, but it had left a painful mark, and the searing omniblade had ripped the small wound wide open. One-handed, Evfra struggled out of his rofjinn and wrapped it tightly around his upper arm. With a corner of the garment, he rubbed dried blood from his face.

“Do you really have contact with anyone on Kadara?” Isamal asked, then shook his head. “That’s not important right now, is it?”

The true confusion on his face told Evfra that panic was probably getting to Isamal, which explained the erratic thoughts. He’d kept it together pretty well until now, so he did not blame him.

“Don’t worry, Kadara would still celebrate if an Exile puts a bullet between my eyes.” He tugged at the rofjinn. How much should he tell him? He seemed trustworthy, and more importantly, Evfra needed Isamal not to lose trust in _him_ right now. Better to feed him some information. “There are always people who regret going, though. For that alone, it is worth it to keep a few – acquaintances. Besides, I’m sure you can guess we have spies there.” He paused. “I don’t have to tell you that’s not for public knowledge.”

“Of course. I just didn’t realise there was any talking to them anymore, but... they are angara, are they not?”

“Yes. They’re traitors, but some of them are just desperate and lonely and realise their mistake fast.”

Perhaps Evfra had a little more understanding for them than most, at least for the ones that ended up on Kadara out of desperation. There had been times where leaving it all behind and spending the last few years of his miserable existence drinking before the kett tore it all down hadn’t seemed like the worst idea. Besides, angara stuck together. He’d let Akksul’s people return as well.

“That’s very forgiving of you,” Isamal said with mild surprise in his voice.

“Don’t tell anyone that, either,” Evfra muttered.

For the first time since this morning, Isamal smiled. Evfra felt relieved to see it. As he looked out of the window, he noticed there were the four spires he’d seen on his way here. They had followed a dry riverbed before that.

“Towards those four tall stones,” he said.

“Do you know where we are?”

“Vaguely. The cars passed by them after they drove next to the crevasse for a while,” Evfra said, pointing to its thin line that wound from the spires. 

Isamal turned the Mako.

“You have a good eye for these things. I have not the faintest idea where we are.”

“I used to be a messenger back on Voeld. You need to remember a lot of similar-looking landmarks, especially where the maps get sparse.”

It was not necessary for him to know, but Evfra wanted to distract Isamal from their current situation as much as he could.

“A messenger! I wouldn’t have been able to guess that. That couldn’t have been where you’ve learned to shoot?”

“It was, actually. Voeld’s wildlife can be very unforgiving towards lone wanderers.”

“I think I would have liked to have met you then. Just to compare,” Isamal said thoughtfully.

“You would be disappointed. People like to imagine my past changed me, and it did – but I was always prickly.”

Isamal chuckled. His fingers were not quite so tight around the steering wheel anymore.

-

Unfortunately for their escape, night fell quickly on Eos and though their Mako had headlights, they cut only thin strips into the dark. What they did illuminate, however, as Isamal drew tight circles not too far from their path in hopes of finding a good spot to hide, was a small black-rock entrance into a Remnant cave. 

“Let me check it out.”

The sun had taken the heat with it and the air was cool as Evfra clambered out of the seat. He readied his gun as he waited for the doors to slide apart. However, inside were no Remnant creatures, just the sealed hole of the gravity well in the ground.

“Just drive the car in here!” he called to Isamal.

“Are you certain?”

“Yes, Remnant machines should only be active on the lower levels. I don’t think we will need to go that far.”

Isamal did as he asked, managing to thread the needle of the car into the door that was barely any broader. When it closed behind them and Isamal switched off the motor and the headlights with it, they stood in the cold blue glow that emitted from the lines in the smooth material the Remnant builders had been so fond of.

“How did you know it would be safe in here?”

“As I said, I was a messenger. I never knew much of archaeology, but Voeld is full of these old structures. They make for good cover in a snow storm.”

He walked to the back of the Mako and unlatched the hatch there. From the rattling behind them during Isamal’s more adventurous manoeuvres, he’d figured there was something inside. Isamal peered over his shoulder as Evfra turned to him and handed him a water bottle. There were enough to last them a few days even if they weren’t careful with them and he had hopes to make it back to Prodromos by tomorrow.

“No food, I’m afraid.”

“That’s too bad, but water is more important,” Isamal answered. “Thank you.”

After emptying half a bottle, Evfra dug further through the chaotic jumble of items. There was a broad, folded tarp, probably to protect the Mako from sand in a storm when it was parked. He pulled that out, too.

“This would be our bedding for the night.”

Isamal helped him to spread it out over the ground. They would be able to fold it up around themselves and at least pretend to have a blanket.

“Where I grew up, we also had some Remnant ruins. Only crumbling walls, though, nothing that moved. They had long been cleared of defenders. We played hiding and catch around the old stones,” Isamal said as Evfra sat down next to him. He gazed at the stones above them, their light reflecting in his blue eyes, melting in them. “Isn’t it strange to think how naturally both of us treated them as part of the environment, knowing what we do now about the Remnant? They were always impressive, but these days they feel like the remains of forgotten gods.”

Evfra glanced at the entrance to the gravity well.

“Not sure if the Remnant would have been happy with our use of their technically advanced resources,” he said.

“Who knows? If the Vaults could not do what they were meant to, perhaps it would have given them some comfort to know that in our small ways, we still got something from them.”

“Do you imagine them as benevolent creators?” Evfra asked.

“Don’t you?”

“I... can’t begin to guess,” Evfra murmured.

Usually, he would have said it didn’t matter, his standard answer to keep morale even, but he was tired and hurt. However, though Isamal had spend most of this day terrified, this answer did not seem to faze him. He even smiled.

“I’m not certain myself,” Isamal said, leaning back against the cave wall. “Perhaps I just want to think of them as a good-hearted, doomed people.” He shook his head. “I acknowledge it’s entirely possible they bombed each other out of existence and that is why we have never seen them.”

“Does the uncertainty not bother you?”

Because it bothered Evfra quite a bit.

“I just think there’s little sense in worrying about it. If we or the aliens find some directive the Jardaan had for us, it’s clear we’re not bound to it. We have made our way here despite the failure of their machinery.” He gave a lopsided smile. “As for my wish to see them as friendly, I’m sure it’s projection. I have a great many plants I grow at home for my own enjoyment, and as patriarch, the development of each of my family members is under my care. The idea of nurturing something just for the sake of it doesn’t seem so mysterious to me.”

Evfra made a thoughtful noise. “Maybe that’s why _I_ keep thinking that there’s little reason to make so many people but to create an army.”

“Either of us may be right. Perhaps it’s something entirely different – some thought of a great machine we cannot even fathom.”

Looking up at the ceiling, Evfra was surprised to find a shiver run up his spine.

“I’d rather it were a disappointing but explainable reason.”

“I find the idea of an opaque master plan rather fascinating.”

“You’re more fearless than me.”

Isamal huffed.

“I think today disproves that notion.” He straightened as he looked at Evfra. “I do want to apologise. I was exceedingly useless.”

“You did ram a car off an embankment,” Evfra pointed out.

The startled laugh Isamal gave sounded like he could still hardly believe it himself.

“Apparently, fear sometimes manages to dig up all the little courage one has left. Still, I was dead weight for most of the time and it’s my fault that...” He gestured at Evfra’s arm. “Leave it to me to miss a shot at someone standing two feet away. I know why I don’t spend much time off Aya.”

“It was _my_ risky escape plan. I’m glad you didn’t end up paying for it.”

“May I-” Isamal stopped himself, cleared his throat. “Could I take a look at the wound?”

Evfra raised a brow at his odd behaviour until he realised that it was embarrassment that had disturbed Isamal’s reclaimed calm.

“You don’t have to be squeamish asking about a combat injury. We’re out in the field,” Evfra reminded him.

“Despite the situation, it _is_ a private matter,” Isamal insisted, lifting his chin.

“It’s not when it’s the man who is supposed to be protecting you.”

Despite the awkward stiffness in his expression, Isamal gave a smile.

“Is that your role? You got kidnapped alongside me.”

Evfra shrugged his good shoulder. “For all intents and purposes, I’m now your Resistance escort.”

Carefully, Evfra unwrapped the rofjinn, grimacing as it pulled it away from the wound. Isamal leaned closer as Evfra peered down at himself, too. It looked gruesome, but he could still move the arm, if under pain.

“Is there enough water to wash it? At least so there won’t be dirt stuck in it.”

“Yes, there’s quite a bit.”

Isamal got to his feet and liberated another bottle from the Mako’s trunk. His face was green with a blush, but he levelled an expectant gaze at Evfra. Evfra held out his arm.

“Tell me if I’m hurting you too much,” Isamal said, keeping his eyes down.

Evfra nodded his head. There was little danger of that, as Isamal’s touches were timid. They felt strange, in fact. Evfra had had plenty of medics’ hands on him this last decade, those of sparring partners, freed civilians or wounded soldiers clinging to him – and in truth, these careful brushes from Isamal’s hands were not any less utilitarian. However, their softness reminded him of different times for just a moment.

Isamal did manage to get the worst clumps of dried blood and lint off, though, and when he was finished, he detached one of the layers of cloth that hung from the belt around his hip and wrapped it around Evfra’s arm.

“Isn’t that too expensive to be made into a bandage?” Evfra asked.

Isamal’s family had the money, of course. They didn’t profit of the distribution of basics, but they did dabble in the luxury trade and the wealth they had built up over the decades and centuries was too much to squander for even a much less intelligent man than Isamal. Still, the soft silk felt instinctively too nice to be wasted like this.

“You used your rofjinn. That’s much more significant.”

“It has seen worse. Can I have the bottle?”

With consternation in his eyes, Isamal looked him up and down.

“Are there more wounds?”

“Just a small one.”

Evfra tugged his belt open and pulled up his top, twisting to get a better view on the slash Callum had left on his hip. It was at an awkward spot to reach, running from under his ribcage down to his thigh along his side.

Isamal drew in air sharply.

“If that had gone deeper-”

“It didn’t,” he interrupted him.

Isamal stopped, then simply nodded his head.

“Let me help.”

“Alright.”

He’d probably just get water all over himself if he tried to do this with one hand. Evfra shifted so that Isamal had better access to the cut. Even so, Isamal had to come closer to see in the gloom of the cave. He spilled the water into his hand first to distribute it carefully, mopping the pink-tinged liquid off with another fold of his robes. As Evfra looked downwards, really considered the angle, fear that he hadn’t dared to show Isamal washed over him belatedly. _If it had gone deeper_ it would have hit organs. It wasn’t his first close fight; it wasn’t his first close fight this year. However, brushes with death were never easy to shrug off. _Might be a good thing._

“Evfra?”

He lifted his eyes. Isamal looked torn between trepidation and concern and Evfra reminded himself of his own words that he was Isamal’s escort. He could not lose his nerve now. Perhaps there was a little bit of pride, too, born of that part of his brain that was too aware Isamal was not less attractive up close, and after pushing himself past what was obviously his point of comfort just to help Evfra. To calm him, Evfra reached out to squeeze his shoulder.

Isamal kissed him.

Evfra kept his hand where it was, did not move. Through the adrenaline and pain, he could barely say if he was surprised. The kiss felt good. Isamal’s large body next to his felt good. He’d already spent a thought too much on his hands.

His head told him to push Isamal away. He had not kissed anyone since his husband, stashed that part of himself away entirely. A more base voice that could barely communicate in words, though, was growing louder, drowning out reason. He was angara, was he not? No one would blink an eye to hear they’d let passion overwhelm them when there was no reason not to, no one waiting for them at home.

_I could do it once. Just to remember how it feels._

Evfra moved his hand up to Isamal’s face and that turned Isamal’s careful press of lips into something much more eager. One-armed, Evfra pulled him on top of him, and Isamal scrambled not to lean on the cut. His touch was firmer now, pressing on Evfra with a sort of need Evfra hadn’t felt directed at him in too long. He didn’t pretend that he was wanted for any other reason than that he happened to be here right now, but it was exciting nonetheless to feel Isamal’s hands folding up his already loosened shirt and touch every inch of skin they found beneath. The ache that still thrummed from cuts and bruises mixed with the much more subtle melody Isamal’s finger and mouth played on him. He pressed his hips up against his thigh and Isamal let out a quick breath against his mouth as he felt Evfra’s hard cock.

With only one hand, Evfra’s options were limited, especially as they laid entangled on the tarp. He broke away from their drawn-out, open-mouthed kisses and sat up. Isamal followed his example, his expensive robes dishevelled and creased, and opened his mouth just before Evfra pressed him up against the wall with his good hand. Evfra locked eyes with him for a moment, checked that next to lust and surprise there was no doubt on Isamal’s face, then doubled over to sort through Isamal’s robes again. He folded them aside, pulled open the buttons of the trousers underneath, and let a small spark of electricity fly from his fingers as he grabbed his cock, allowing it to connect with Isamal’s own bioelectricity field, causing a beautiful, breathless sound. Isamal’s cock was pleasantly thick and felt heavy against his palm and then against his lips. He was already spilling precome that left a slightly salty tang on his tongue.

It surprised Evfra how eagerly something in him reared up as he put his mouth around him. In one moment he knew he’d missed this, watching someone squirm as he sucked them off. _What a stupid thing to crave. It’s just sex._ But Isamal slid his flat hands down over his shoulders, placing them on his back, then dragged them slowly up the ridged folds of his head to hold it gently, and Evfra shuddered.

He stretched his tongue out as far as he could, opening his mouth, until the tip of his tongue met his own fingers which were curled around the base of Isamal’s cock. It was a show and Evfra let Isamal watch closely before he dropped his hand to cradle Isamal’s balls and shifted his head, pulling back his tongue, but closing his mouth around Isamal’s cock instead. He pushed his mouth down fast, into Isamal’s careful upward thrusts, and felt fingertips pressing tighter against his skull. The vigour of his movement drew out Isamal’s courage, whose quiet sigh sounded relieved as he sped up the movement of his hips to match Evfra. 

As he met Isamal in quick, firm rhythm, he found himself moving restlessly, wishing that he had a hand free to touch himself, but unwilling to give up on the noises Isamal made when he rolled Isamal’s balls along his palm and over the ridged surface of his three webbed fingers. He was still considering this predicament when Isamal suddenly moved his hand, placing it under Evfra’s chin to raise his head. The touch was a suggestion more than an order, but Evfra was curious and desperate and let his cock slide out of his mouth to follow it. He found himself greeted with a kiss as he sat up, kneeling over Isamal’s thighs.

Isamal’s hand dropped to the front of his trousers. Evfra gritted his teeth as he only squeezed him through the coarse material for a moment, but Isamal was too riled up for teasing. With one hand on Evfra’s ass, he pulled him close, and the urgency was like another electrical spark shared between them. Evfra’s opened his trousers and took them both in hand, rutting against Isamal, putting him with his back against the wall again, and found Isamal’s long fingers joining him quickly. When he dropped his head and buried it against Isamal’s throat, sucking a bruise into the pale green skin, Isamal came over both their hands. Glancing up, Evfra was struck by how good he looked, open-mouthed, damp with sweat, with a feverish haze in his eyes. However, Isamal was not still for long. With his hand coated in seed, he stroked him, pressing the pad of this thumb against the underside of his cock, dragging it over the head. Evfra felt his own pulse against Isamal’s finger, thrusting into the tight hole his hand made for him. He’d didn’t last long and he saw Isamal watching closely as he came, enjoying the sight of Evfra spilling himself.

While Isamal caught his breath, Evfra grabbed his rofjinn and cleaned them up with rough swipes of the fabric. The scandalised look on Isamal’s face made him smile as he tucked himself back in.

“It’s ruined, anyway,” he said.

Isamal sighed, getting his robes back in order. “I suppose so! But the one who made it for you would be unhappy that it had such a purpose.”

“I paid someone to make it. They will take money to make another. My oldest one is long lost, I replaced it a dozen times by now.”

The old one being the one that could not so easily be replaced and was decomposing under the rubble of his home or had otherwise been stolen by scavengers long ago. It was probably better that way, since it would have been too easy to make it a meaningless symbol. A piece of cloth couldn’t bring his family back.

“Is that so?” Isamal asked, confused. “I’m sure many would be happy to make you one if they knew. You have helped a lot of people.”

“I don’t want to shred more gifts. You have seen the sort of trouble I can get into.” He tugged softly at the fabric of Isamal’s rofjinn. “At least yours is in order.”

“Much like I am, unlike you. I – hope that I did not aggravate anything. You were quite distracting, but I shouldn’t have gotten so carried away.”

He smiled apologetically as Evfra suppressed a snort at his choice of words. What a way to describe a blowjob.

“Don’t worry, I’d have said something.”

Evfra glanced towards the door. Hopefully, the wind had blown away the Mako’s tracks completely by now.

“You should get some sleep. The nights on Eos are short,” he told Isamal.

“What about you?”

“I will keep watch. I’m not tired.”

It wasn’t true, but Evfra had slept the night before this, so there was no reason he shouldn’t be able to white-knuckle through this one. If the looming threat of the Exiles wouldn’t keep him awake, the sinking realisation that he’d just slept with someone – and had enjoyed it, and would have done it again if Isamal had kissed him now –, would do it. His pulse was already flying.

Hesitantly, Isamal laid down on the ground, pulling some of the tarp over him. “You can wake me if you need to rest.”

“Of course,” Evfra said.

-

He did wake Isamal, but only after a cursory glance outside told him the sun was rising again. They packed up quickly and Isamal climbed in the driver’s seat without an invitation.

“I think we may have shaken them,” he said, after he’d carefully driven the car backwards out of their hiding place.

Evfra nodded his head.

Neither of them referred to last night. Evfra figured it was not necessary. After all, it was quite clear to any thinking person what manner of tryst this had been.

“I barely had time to see how beautiful this planet is. It’s very different even from the desert on Havarl,” Isamal said after a while, when they had followed the dried-up riverbed to its end and Evfra led them east past a mountain range. “To think there might be so many other environments for us to explore once we learn to read Meridian fully...”

“And who knows what will become of Havarl and Voeld now that the Vaults are engaged again? They’re not supposed to change completely, but it is said there were once flowers on Voeld.”

“That would be a sight to see.” He smiled at Evfra. “Would you mind if it got too warm? If you were a messenger, you must have not found the weather too hard to bear.”

“I like the snow and even the storms, but I guess I can live with it being a little more habitable for hot-house plants from Havarl and Aya,” Evfra said flatly, throwing Isamal a glance. “There must be a reason angara were built to weather the cold, though.”

“I heard we are sturdier than humans and asari in that regard. It’s going to be interesting to see if we might have to make use of such harsher worlds to draw back to if... but that might be an uncharitable thought.”

Evfra shook his head. In fact, he found it refreshing to hear that Isamal was not as blindly optimistic as some of his follow officials.

“Keep it in mind,” Evfra advised him. “They’re good allies so far, but it’s said so were the kett.”

“I had hoped you would say so. Not that I want needless suspicion, but it calms me to know that you are keeping an eye on them.” He pulled the Mako around a rocky field, the sort Evfra had learned yesterday would make it jump like a bouncy ball. “You know, people were surprised you were the one to extend a hand to the aliens first. I admit I was one of them.”

“Circumstances forced that hand – and since my soldier Jaal Ama Darav charged forward so recklessly, I felt I had to support him.” He shrugged. “Since we are talking more candidly about Kadara: My experiences with the Exiles there had tempered the worst of my fears. At the very least it seemed like the Nexus was honestly struggling instead of a great invading force.”

Isamal nodded his head.

“Let’s hope we continue good neighbourship here on Eos. The land is definitely worth it.”

“That was why we came, wasn’t it?” Evfra said laconically.

Isamal laughed. “I’d almost forgotten it myself.”

Evfra wanted to answer, but that was when he noticed another car appearing from around a sharp corner of the mountain. It wasn’t a Resistance speeder.

“We’re not alone,” he muttered. He had kept the assault rifle in his lap just in case.

The lightness of the bright morning was swept away. Isamal held on tight to the steering wheel.

“They’re catching up,” he said quietly, glancing out the window.

“I didn’t see this kind of car at the Exile base. It must be Nexus, though.”

Before they had a chance to speculate, the vehicle had shot past them and turned sharply, coming to a halt exactly in their path. Evfra groaned as the impact of the collision flung him sideways against the door onto the wound on his arm.

Evidently, that car handled better than theirs.

“Duck!” he told Isamal. “In case they start shooting, don’t move from under the seat.”

Isamal did as he was told, but as he leaned down, he risked a glance at the people that were climbing out the vehicle’s door.

“Was that an angara?” he asked, from the height of the steering wheel.

Two humans or asari and an angara, by Evfra’s estimates.

“It’s Jaal,” Evfra realised, as he looked at the modified kett sniper rifle the angara soldier pulled from his back.

Next to him, Isamal let out a long, deep breath.

Evfra opened the door, leaning behind the small window. “Don’t shoot!”

“Evfra!”

Jaal tore off his helmet and next to him, the two humans lowered their weapons. Evfra waved at Isamal to follow him.

Like a young adhi, Jaal charged towards him and stopped himself just half a foot before Evfra. He’d probably have hugged him had Evfra been any other person, judging by the joyous relief spreading over his face. Evfra didn’t want to know what Jaal’s day had been like – he remembered his nerves had felt like strings on an instrument when the Moshae had been kidnapped.

“You made it!” The Pathfinder pulled off her helmet, too.

“They called you in for another peaceful pathfinding mission, I see,” Evfra said, looking at her shotgun.

Ryder grinned. “It’s what I’m best at. We were passing close by Eos, so they flagged us down.”

Isamal had climbed out of the car on Evfra’s side. 

“This is Isamal Akevek,” Evfra said, glancing over his shoulder. “We were the only two taken as far as I know.”

“That’s what we’ve been told, too,” Ryder answered. “Credible sources. Jaal was very insistent with their informant we found in Prodromos.”

Jaal muttered a word in a Havarl dialect Evfra didn’t know, but which was certain to be a very colourful descriptor for the agent.

Isamal nodded at the Pathfinder and her team. He stood straight again, despite the surge of fear Evfra had seen go through him just seconds ago.

“Sara Ryder, Liam Kosta, and Jaal Ama Darav,” he said.

“Wow. Didn’t know you knew my name,” Liam blurted out.

Evfra raised a brow at him.

“You ask everybody on Aya the oddest questions, it would be difficult for it not to get back to me.”

Ryder grinned at Liam, who didn’t even look a little bit sorry.

“So you decided to rescue yourselves, I see,” she said.

“It was a risk, but so was staying. It wasn’t a stable situation. They were amateurs and nervous. I was worried one or both of us would end up hurt or dead. Besides, we both agreed we’d rather not be ammunition against our own.”

“Excuse me,” Isamal interrupted, as Ryder opened her mouth, “would it be possible that we talk after we are back in Prodromos?”

After all the hemming and hawing about it last night, Evfra wasn’t surprised he only threw a meaningful gaze at Evfra’s bandaged arm, but he still found the politeness somewhat endearing.

Jaal picked up on it before the humans did. “We should get Evfra to a medic, Ryder.”

“And both of them away from this open place,” Ryder agreed. “Do you want to follow us in your car? It’s half an hour’s drive now.”

“I can take over,” Evfra said, looking at Isamal.

“No, I’m used to it now. Besides, you should have at least some rest.” He inclined his head at Ryder. “Thank you for coming for us, Pathfinder. It’s good you found us here. We had no map, although Evfra was using the rocks to guide us. He broke us out of the prison and had our escape planned – I hadn’t even noticed the cars when they dragged us out... it’s to his credit that we made it here!”

If Isamal sounded impressed, Evfra chalked it up to the fact that he was relatively new to combat. It was certainly nothing he should get an ego about.

-

Mayor Bradley and the scientists were very visibly glad that they had not lost a major Ayan official and the leader of the Resistance in one go. Evfra allowed himself to be ushered into a small med bay to have his wounds treated and insisted that Isamal came along to have his bruises looked at. After having Evfra describe the way to the base, the Pathfinder and her team left to support the Resistance soldiers who had been sent to find Isamal and Evfra and would now lead the sweep of the Exiles’ camp.

Evfra brought Isamal to a second shipment of Resistance soldiers that had just arrived and were now somewhat superfluous, but easily repurposed as a guard.

“I will wait for my soldiers to come back and finalise our agreement with Bradley, but I’d rather you get back to Aya. It has been an eventful trip already and longer than we expected.”

“I do have work to do at home, but it feels strange to leave you here now,” Isamal admitted. “Even though I realise I was more of a liability than anything else! The mind plays such tricks, I suppose.”

After a shower, Isamal hadn’t only found a new change of robes, but also restored the charming smile and keen look in his eyes, though his expression was marred by a small frown now. Evfra had not thought him less handsome when he’d been dishevelled and dirt-stained and almost shivering with adrenaline, but he liked him better like this, when it looked like Isamal wanted to be in his own skin.

“You did much more than I’d expect from a civilian. Don’t worry, I have no reason to leave Prodromos and I won’t stay much longer. It would surprise me if the Pathfinder and my people cannot clear out the Kadara Exiles.”

“I trust that you will return safely, then.”

Isamal lifted his arm and Evfra mirrored the gesture, let their wrists knock together. For a brief moment, he considered saying something more, but as Isamal was already turning towards the ship, he kept his mouth clamped shut. Luckily, other matters waited at the edge of his vision, as Mayor Bradley strode towards him. No time to think too much.

-

It was at night that Evfra could not so quickly escape himself anymore. As he’d sat in the cave, the events between Isamal and him had been too fresh to contemplate in greater detail and he’d been mostly focused on straining his senses to catch any noises outside, but now he was back on a ship bound for Aya with nothing to consider but his own thoughts.

Thoran ruled them now, for the first time in a long time. It wasn’t that he never thought of his husband anymore, but after ten years, Thoran, alongside the rest of his family, had ceased to be a constant presence in his mind. Evfra felt the guilt of that carelessness acutely, even knowing that if it had been otherwise, if he’d still clung to his family’s shades as he had in the beginning, he wouldn’t have been able to function. Maybe it would have been the more honourable way. Maybe shooting himself in the head would have been the best path. Yet, Evfra had chosen to live and that meant moving on, moving away from them.

In some ways, though, he never had, and had been fine with that. How odd to find himself suddenly at the other end at another bridge crossed, ten years down the line.

Evfra pulled the blanket tighter around himself and tried to retrace his path instead.

Thoran had been in many ways a man Evfra should have expected to be married to and a surprise nonetheless. He’d always liked men with a little bite, so a militia soldier had been an obvious choice; but loudmouths annoyed him, and Thoran had had no filter between his brain and his tongue. The difference had perhaps been that Thoran was not a moron, despite sometimes giving his level best to act like one. They had only started talking because Evfra had dropped into their small town with packages every once in a while and had beaten Thoran thrice at arm wrestling at the local tavetaan. He’d eventually refused to give him a rematch, claiming someone who’d lost three times already was unlikely to win the fourth. He’d done it mostly because Thoran’s snarl had been pretty to look at, showing those filed canine teeth that had been popular at the border to the Faldorn mountains many years ago. Thoran had been quick enough to figure that one out and, on Evfra’s next visit, had changed his request to a date. Evfra had agreed to that.

Recalling him now, Evfra still saw that sharp-edged smile, his broad hands, the tattoos that were drawn all over his body; he could feel the cold wind biting him as he looked up at Thoran leaning over the balustrades that protected the town, muscular arms in bulky armour leisurely draped over the edge as he pretended to think whether he would let Evfra in. ‘Toll is a kiss.’ That joke hadn’t changed in all the years they had been together, which Evfra had often complained about, but he’d always paid up.

Stars, he felt young thinking back on that. Had it really only been eleven years since he’d last heard Thoran say those words?

Turning, Evfra kicked at the blanket. Had he dishonoured the memory of his husband by sleeping with someone else? Even opening himself to his most irrational fears, he couldn’t pretend that Thoran would have been mad at him. Knowing his husband, he’d both have had just as much trouble as Evfra moving on, but would have teased him for his long celibacy, anyway. ‘Evfra the Priest’, he’d called him once, when Evfra had mentioned he hadn’t had sex in a couple of years because his wandering life as a messenger sometimes just didn’t provide him with opportunities. Thoran wouldn’t have begrudged him this.

No, the problem wasn’t that he had fucked someone in a moment of stress and rushing relief. It was that he’d thought of Isamal as handsome before and that he had proven easy to talk to. That, no matter how much he tried to compare Thoran and Isamal, and leave Isamal looking like a dry, fragile bureaucrat in the process, he was impressed by the tenacity he had shown. It was not just the novelty of sleeping with someone again that had sent his thoughts into a tailspin, it was the realisation that were this twenty years ago, before he’d met his husband, he would have asked Isamal out.

What an unnecessary thing to get hung up on, Evfra considered, angrily bunching the pillow up under his face to find some way to lie comfortably. To Isamal, he had at worst been convenient comfort, and at best attractive as part of some fantasy. A rough lay with a Resistance soldier out in the wilderness fit pretty well into the narrative of a daring escape from hostile forces, after all. No real harm in that, and if anyone deserved to get to live it, it was Isamal, who hadn’t played pretend for the uncomfortable part of the story, either. It didn’t mean that a distinguished Ayan patriarch was really looking to spend substantial time with someone as rough around the edges as Evfra. That wasn’t even going into the idea of a new relationship, which Evfra had no time for if nothing else, and which still seemed like a great way to lose his grip on his sanity if it all went the worst way again.

_Time to shut that chapter._

-

_Evfra,_

_Now that we are back in the safe haven of Aya, I feel like I need to put my gratitude in more eloquent words than what I managed on Eos. As bad as it may be to say so, I was endlessly relieved that you were by my side for this ordeal. Though you told me I may have been safer as a hostage on my own, you allowing me to be something but helpless was worth the danger. I also have to say that it was eye-opening to see your work, as it were. I have only met you as the commander and while I always believed the tales of your accomplishments as a soldier, this was irrefutable evidence. Perhaps now I may sleep more soundly even when you do decide to venture outside, as it’s clear you have forgotten nothing of your roots. I look forward to meeting you again soon._

_May the stars watch over you,  
Isamal_

_Isamal,_

_I still wish I’d have kept both of us out of the hands of kidnappers in the first place, which would have been a better showing of skill. Good to know that I didn’t make you lose faith in the Resistance, though. If there’s anything to discuss, feel free to contact me._

_Stars guide you  
Evfra_

On the way to the Sunburst celebration Evfra found himself tapping through the short messages in his archive again, then shut the whole application down. It had been ten days since he’d returned from Eos and this was the only exchange of words he’d had with Isamal, which made absolute sense. After all, they were still waiting on the Nexus to confirm the agreement made on Eos and until then there was really nothing to talk about between colleagues anymore.

Evfra tried to shake off the thought and looked ahead to the Great Dome at the end of the long street instead. Paraan had called the members of the major Ayan families and the seven other mayors of the greatest cities on Aya to the celebration of the longest day, alongside a list of administration officials that included Evfra. They had had official functions before, some with a feastday slant, but this was the first celebration Evfra could remember that had been advertised without any work-related items on the list.

They were not the only ones who felt the pressure valve easing up just a little, Evfra thought, as he looked out of the window of his pre-programmed speeder inching through the city. He saw lots of gatherings in yards and plazas, with flowers pinned to the walls in garlands, people singing to music from their tinny multitool speakers and dancing on the sidewalk. Angara generally liked their gatherings and even the kett had never been able to take that from them, but Evfra hadn’t seen the streets so full for Sunburst since he moved here. Even if he was not exactly looking forward to the evening, he found his heart lifting a little to see people were enjoying themselves without the ketts’ shadow directly looming over them.

Evfra arrived at the Great Dome a little too late and worked his way from the front towards the main hall, greeting acquaintances on the way. The celebrations were already in full swing in the central room, were the citizens’ forum was usually held when the weather was too bad to do it in the market place. People laughed and drank and danced under loops of flowers.

He liberated a glass of fruit juice without tavuum from a tray. Unfortunately, he would likely have to navigate too many accusatory discussions about his lax treatment of the Nexus people tonight to risk knocking himself out, even if that was one of the reasons he really wanted to. As he sipped his sweet drink, he let his gaze wander over the dancers. Most were dressed better than Evfra, who’d realised too late that he had nothing appropriate to wear to a real feast and instead had pulled his only parade uniform out of the closet, a black bodysuit with some bright turquoise slashes of colour to match his rofjinn, a new but identical piece he’d bought after the adventure on Eos. Matched with that were heavy black boots that went up to his knees and a lot of thin, dark belts strapped over his thighs and torso and along his arms that were a hassle to deal with but made the whole thing look more fashionable, or so he was told.

One especially elaborately dressed figure moved in the middle of the dance floor. It was Isamal, who was habitually beset by potential dance partners at every function, being an exceptionally talented dancer, and tonight had of course already been claimed as well. His robes were expansive, intricate layers of fabric in several matching shades of blue, shifting like water in the sun whenever he turned. A simple diadem laid around his head, its lines fitting the tattoos exactly, with flowers in a dozen colours stuck under the metal.

He swung the man he was currently with deftly around, brought him back in, all with little more but brief touches and tugs and tiny gestures. The one who danced with him wasn’t half as good as Isamal, but his skill more than made up for the lack in his partner.

Evfra felt a twinge and flutter right under his ribcage, like a bird trying to get free.

Quickly, he looked away and downed more of the juice, wishing it was tavuum more ardently. It hadn’t escaped his notice that Isamal’s job and his family connections would make him a likely guest. There was a reason he’d been listlessly looking at their messages again tonight, though he may not have admitted it to himself.

_I will not moon over a man just because I sucked his dick. How old am I?_

Best to find the people now who wanted to complain to him about the aliens – there had been a few desperately offering on his rounds already. It should take his mind off this if nothing else. He turned away to let his gaze sweep the crowd for people that he could join in a conversation. The Halveen family had appeared in force as expected, but Evfra knew that once he was roped into a discussion with them, he would hardly escape past midnight and not without his head spinning. Unfriendly voices said the reason they had so many political appointments was not their skill, but that they had always trained their hopeful disciples in use of the citizens’ forum. He briefly considered finding Paraan to discuss the latest data of the search for the worlds of Meridian, which was quite encouraging, then reminded himself that this was not meant to be a preamble to a meeting. Perhaps he should just be on the look-out for someone who was content to talk at him without expecting an answer, to make this easy on himself. He was surrounded by politicians, it shouldn’t be hard to locate such a person.

“Evfra!”

The voice interrupted his considerations and forced Evfra to turn. Isamal came towards him with a smile on his face. As he’d stood contemplating, Evfra had not noticed that the last song had wound down, replaced with a fast drum rhythm.

“You look magnificent. I don’t think I have ever seen you wear this.”

Isamal looked him up and down and Evfra felt immediately ridiculous in the useless uniform. Any military garment, in his mind, should at least have some function.

“It got it for a vid the Resistance made years ago,” he said sullenly. “Public relations.”

Chuckling, Isamal got out of the way of the dancers, joining Evfra at the edge of the hall. “Successful propaganda, I must assume.” He glanced at the dance floor. “Will you join in?”

“Unlikely.”

Smiling, Isamal shook his head. “You really don’t dance at all, do you?”

“No,” Evfra said truthfully.

He couldn’t remember doing it even once, at least not here on Aya. In the small festivals at home, he had danced, but he doubted he’d been even a quarter as graceful as Isamal there, either. Luckily, him and his husband had matched each other in that and simply had had fun bumbling around together.

Glancing to the side, Isamal located a low table with drinks and picked one for himself. “I think I’m done for tonight as well.”

“That’s going to disappoint a lot of people,” Evfra said.

“Your refusal to take anyone’s offer does, too.”

“Don’t worry. No one has been brave enough to ask in years,” Evfra answered flatly.

Isamal laughed.

“How will you entertain yourself tonight, in that case?”

He’d started walking and, without thinking, Evfra followed, out into an adjacent room where people sat in circles around oval tables, some small and some big enough to hold enough angara to start a small celebration by themselves.

“We’ll see. I’m not fond of social gatherings. I thought about blowing it off for work,” Evfra admitted. “I could be doing things for the Resistance right now, but – it didn’t seem right.”

“Oh, I completely understand,” Isamal said with a nod. “I actually considered staying home as well, though I do enjoy this. Still, there’s much to do. Yet, if we always sit in the office, we might miss what our work was supposed to lead to, don’t you think?”

“Yes,” Evfra said, surprised to hear his own thoughts put in such simple but fitting words.

“To the fruits of our labour.”

He raised his glass and, as was custom, Evfra raised his, too, and bumped their wrists together briefly before he drank.

“Father, there you are.”

Isamal glanced over his shoulder. A young man and woman walked towards them. Evfra judged them to be barely out of their youth. Both wore the same tattoo as Isamal.

“Were you looking for me? Evfra...” He gestured towards them. “These are Tielle and Fariin, my niece and nephew.”

Evfra nodded curtly. It wasn’t unusual for angaran children to collect several fathers as well, even if an accumulation of mothers was more common. Especially on Aya, a patriarch or matriarch would sometimes gain the title just by virtue of their position and even family members of the same age would call them so.

“It’s good to meet you, Evfra,” Tielle said with some reverence in her voice.

“Tielle is a big fan of the Resistance,” Fariin cut in. “If only she wasn’t so bad with a gun...”

Tielle whirled around to glower at him, but Isamal quietly tapping his food once had them both immediately standing to attention, abandoning the quarrel.

“You were looking for me?” he asked.

His voice was just as gentle as usual, but his face was a little harder, his gaze boring into their eyes. Evfra could barely swallow a smile. Were he a half-grown family member of his, he might have been careful to listen, too.

“Aunt Riha sent us. The Verkars want to speak to all of us.”

“I see. Our families are deeply entwined back in our ancestral villages. We really do not meet enough as it is,” Isamal said to Evfra by way of explanation. Perhaps there was something like disappointment in his voice, but maybe Evfra was just flattering himself. “If you have a minute, though, I would like you to meet some more of my family.”

“Father Isamal has been talking of the rescue for days,” Fariin said.

Evfra glanced at the boy. Despite trying to frame the girl as the mindless fan, it was clear his uncle’s tale had interested him, too.

“Your uncle held himself very well,” Evfra said. “He flipped our pursuers’ car.”

“Well, I nudged it with our car, the other car mostly flipped itself...”

It seemed Isamal had not been going to deep into his own heroics, since his niece and nephew gazed at him with wonder.

Looking ahead, Evfra saw a group of men and women, most of whom shared the _eshoan_ as well.

“Quite a few of your family are here.”

“Yes, I have lately called anyone I could to Aya. Our Havarl crops are already creating a lot of surplus and demand for luxury products has risen. Apparently, our food tastes good to the salarians, too – I think I am saying that name right. Currently we are looking to make a unified contract in accordance with the other greater traders to supply the Nexus at a fair, stable rate-”

“Father, it’s a feastday!”

Isamal looked at his nephew and then gave Evfra an apologetic smile.

“He’s right. I shouldn’t be boring you with talk about work.”

“Don’t worry about it. It’s good to know I’m not the only one who can’t set it aside.”

“It must be a matter of personality,” Isamal agreed, somewhat more brightly. “Though I’m sure my nephew here thinks it is because we are old men.” He raised a brow at the boy. “But let me introduce you to the others, too.”

Three of Isamal’s mothers and his father were present and so Evfra was first greeted with a shower of thanksgiving for bringing their son home in one piece. Isamal’s true mother was easily identified by the fact that she towered a head over Evfra, too, though she was shorter than her son. His father wore a friendly smile tinged with curiosity that seemed to Evfra like a softened version of his son’s more sharp-eyed expression. Evfra also found himself trying to remember the names and faces of four cousins, an aunt and uncle, two sisters and a brother.

After the introductions were over, Fariin was already waving at Isamal, standing next to an impatient-looking man in the doorway. Gracefully nudging into an ongoing conversation, Isamal suggested with his usual friendly firmness that they would have to move on to the Verkars now. However, as his family trudged away, he lingered for a moment longer and then reached up to his diadem, plucking a blue flower from it and holding it to Evfra.

“You should fasten one to your uniform.”

Because the gesture was so unexpected, Evfra reached for the flower automatically, sure that he looked a little puzzled.

“For tradition’s sake,” Isamal explained with humour in his voice. “I’m sure there’ll be photos on the extranet, after all. Think of public relations.”

And though Evfra had to smile, once Isamal had lost himself in the crowd, he did push the stem of the flower through a hole in one of his many belts. It couldn’t hurt, after all.

Left alone, Evfra found himself moving back into the main hall. Glancing at the dance floor, he suddenly wished he’d asked Isamal to show him a few steps.

 _You’d have only made a fool out of yourself._ And who was to say that Isamal would have wanted to dance? But that flower on his chest suddenly seemed to weigh there like lead. Evfra shook off the sudden mix of excitement and dread. He could still be making something out of nothing.

-

Not only Isamal was busy and, as he had always done, Evfra took his mind off emotions he had no use for with work. He made a trip to Havarl to check on a few Resistance hubs which he hadn’t been able to visit in almost a year. This kept him awake day and night just to get to everyone who had a good reason to want to talk to him.

After six days, he was tired, but returned buzzing with thoughts of what to implement on the old angaran homeworld now that they had some respite from the kett, almost not at all disappointed that Isamal had not written to him after the function and at the same time vindicated in his pessimism.

However, on the morning after he had stepped off the ship, he could barely stand up from his bed without falling over. The slight cough that had sat in his throat since the middle of his visit to Havarl had turned his voice almost inaudible and he felt hot enough to boil.

Olvek took a detour on his way to work and diagnosed Evfra with a nasty but non-lethal bug from Havarl, leaving enough medicine to take care of the virus in a few days and some more pills to ease its effects, which would have knocked him out and which Evfra would therefore predictably give back to Olvek when he returned to the headquarters, since he wanted to be available to the Resistance in an emergency.

He napped his way through most of the day, answering messages here and there until his eyes fell shut again. When the sun sank, he began to become too aware of his dry throat, realising he hadn’t been drinking enough through the fever.

Just as he’d managed to climb out of bed and find a fresh bottle of water, a quick beep from the front door informed him of a visitor. Evfra frowned in the direction of the hallway, then pawed at his multitool to access the street view security camera.

Isamal stood before the door, hands crossed before him, holding a small bag. He glanced very briefly up at the camera, but then back at the door and to the side, pretending as if he had not noticed that Evfra could make the decision to call someone up depending on who the visitor was.

Reflexively, Evfra looked down at himself, the soft breeches and wide shirt hanging off his body, then frowned at the reaction. Of course he looked a mess and if Isamal knew to find him here at a time when he would usually be at work, he couldn’t expect otherwise. However, since Isamal had come here despite his illness, Evfra wanted to know what was so important.

He pressed the safety button on his multitool to allow Isamal in and then opened his front door, walking back down the hallway again after he had done so to keep some distance between them. Isamal’s steps were quiet on the stairs.

“Don’t take it the wrong way if I don’t welcome you properly,” Evfra rasped, lifting one arm to indicate the greeting. “I don’t want to get you sick, too.”

“Don’t worry. I did not mean to inconvenience you. I will be gone in a minute.”

Though Isamal gave his best to keep some solemnity to his voice, Evfra heard the nervous haste in it plain as day. He almost smiled at his renewed awkwardness over Evfra’s health and Isamal seemed to have seen the twitch at the corner of his mouth. He looked sheepish.

“I do apologise for bothering you in a private moment. I wanted to visit you when I passed by the Resistance headquarters this morning, but was informed that you are indisposed.”

“You should know by now I’m not sensitive.”

“I do,” he admitted. “Otherwise, I wouldn’t have thought to come at all.”

“Right. Unlike last time, you put yourself in this position,” Evfra said. “What for? Did something happen?”

“No, not at all. I just wanted to bring you a few things. I’m sure you already have all this, but...”

He glanced around himself, faltering in that assessment before the barren landscape of Evfra’s apartment. He did not spend much time here and had very little of anything in it, in fact. Instead of pointing it out, Isamal set the bag down by the entranceway.

“It’s nothing special, just some Gevran bark tea. I know it can be difficult to get a hand on when the season for the cold is on in Havarl. There is also a small lamp with UV light properties. It’s easier to heal when one doesn’t also fight going dark. This one is said to be quite powerful.”

Evfra raised his brows. The tea was in Isamal’s general purview, though someone with a business empire like him would hardly have all his products within reach immediately, so it would have needed some digging to turn this up. The heater was something he must have bought, however, especially considering it was in what looked like original packaging. It would be useful, as laying in the dark didn’t help the angaran need for sunlight any.

“I don’t have any UV lamps,” Evfra said, “or tea. You are much better prepared than me.”

Isamal smiled.

“Good, then I didn’t bother you for nothing. I would have sent a package, but I figured since I was already in the area, this was faster.” He halted, his face flushing green again but his gaze steady. “It’s very forward, but may I ask how you are?”

“Still in the middle of it, but our medic says it’s not lethal. You saw worse on our trip back to Prodromos.”

“As you pointed out, I couldn’t quite help imposing on you then. It’s different now. I just wanted to – bring you this.”

Evfra noticed the slight hitch in his sentence and wondered if, despite Isamal’s obvious embarrassment, he had just been looking for an excuse to check on him in person, to assure himself that Evfra was alright. It was clear he’d rather be anywhere but in the room with a visibly sick man, but he was standing his ground. It was almost sweet.

“Thank you. They’ll be useful,” Evfra said.

Isamal retrieved his smile, which was wider now than before.

“Please don’t mention it. I hope you get well soon.”

With that, Isamal bowed his head and made a quick retreat. Evfra watched the door close before he picked up the bag, trying to find a different explanation for Isamal’s odd visit than the obvious one, which was so tempting and difficult to deal with.

-

It was clear to Evfra now that Isamal was maybe too polite, but definitely too much of a strategist to push him. Evfra’s refusal to build personal relationships was one of the only things everybody knew about him. This forced Evfra to make a decision now, which should have been an advantage. Somehow, though, it would have been much less daunting to roll with the punches instead of shouldering the responsibility for his actions.

However, if Evfra knew one thing, it was that you couldn’t spend your life cowering in fear. Thoran had taught him that, the reckless bastard. He’d made it a point to run headfirst at everything that frightened him, with good sense or not. Evfra had always supposed it had probably killed him in the end, at the latest when he’d swung a punch at an overseer in some kett labour camp or mouthed off empty-handed to a guard with a gun. Maybe it would kill Evfra, too. Yet, he’d always admired that courage.

He missed Thoran. He doubted he would ever not miss him. He missed all of his family. However, as he thought of Isamal, he realised he also missed having a confidant, someone to speak and laugh with. He wanted to remember what it was like to get to know someone better, not as a soldier, or a colleague, or someone to watch with suspicion, but just because they had caught his interest.

His decision was made and unmade two dozen times for the five days it took Evfra to recuperate fully, but when he went back to work, Evfra knew he wouldn’t find rest until he had given it one shot.

_Isamal,_

_I want to drop by sometime if you’re free. It’s nothing to do with work. Tell me if you have any time._

_Stars guide you  
Evfra_

The answer he got was quick, short – proclaimed to be written between two conference calls –, and affirmative. _I would be happy to welcome you tomorrow evening._

Evfra confirmed the meeting with an answer of a few words, then wondered if there was any present he could bring him in return. The man was too rich to have true need of anything and taking food, the ultimate excuse for a thoughtful present, just seemed like bringing a tree to a forest.

However, the next day, just before he was about to leave for work, Evfra remembered the small vials of seeds that had been handed to him as he got on the spaceship in Prodromos, a symbolic gift and possibly an apology for the kidnapping. He had a feeling Isamal would find them more interesting than cut flowers or candied fruit.

As Evfra collected his things for his visit at Isamal’s place that afternoon, he found himself asking blank air to give him some of that boundless confidence of Thoran’s now.

_I have to live with not having your blessing. I don’t know if, in your heart, you’d really want me to move on. It’s what I tell myself, but I can’t be sure. I do know you wouldn’t want me to drag my feet and refuse to make a decision._

Rejection wasn’t even what he was afraid of. The real potential for horror stemmed from the other path.

And yet, he found himself standing at the edge of the Akevek estate on the very outskirts of the city half an hour later. It was surrounded by a low fence to protect the orchard, by popular myth the first one Isamal’s ancestors had tended to. There was a sleepy older woman at the gate, who let Evfra in on sight. When they had come here last spring with a delegation, Paraan had once told Evfra that climbing the fence to steal a fruit was a common test of courage for kids from the city of Aya and the surrounding villages. Evfra suspected the fact that the Akevek’s turned a blind eye to such games and that most of these fruits would go into paste, anyway, was the reason they hadn’t been forced to erect a proper barrier to keep more malicious thieves out. The force of their good reputation was more powerful than steel and mesh.

The trees were in bloom right now, mixed sweet scents emanating from multicoloured blossoms. Gravel crunched under his boots as he walked through the deepening shadows under their branches. He had come in his usual clothes, the only difference being that he wore his new rofjinn open over his shoulders this time instead of tightly gathered around his neck, which hopefully made him look a little like he still remembered what free time was.

The complex of houses in the middle of the small forest was as old as the orchard and housed the core Akevek family as well as the major offices of their business. Evfra had been here a couple of times, but he had approached the front, where a small entrance hall was reserved for visitors. Branching from the main path was a smaller way flanked by wooden balustrades that led to another door. Isamal had directed him here in his message. A small sound overhead told him whatever security system was around had noticed him.

As he stood there waiting, he felt his nerves twinge. It was not, for once, making his fingers twitch for a gun, but the sort of excitement that could at times produce even a smile.

The doors slid open and Isamal stood behind them. As usual, he was dressed in long robes, scarcely less festive than the ones he had worn to Sunburst, though this time in more muted tones of dark red down to almost black.

“Good evening,” he said. “Welcome to our home. I trust you found your way well.”

“I’ve been here before, but only in a group.”

Evfra stepped inside. This more private entrance hall held sofas and tables for guests and was filled both with sculptures of various angara and decorative potted plants that were led up the walls and along the ceilings by trellises, covering the inside of the room with a blossom-studded canopy. It looked beautiful and was probably an enormous hassle to clean without dragging dry leaves all over the house.

“How are you? I hope you didn’t have to cancel too many appointments to fit me in.”

“No more than you, I would wager,” Isamal said with a smile. “Come in. I’m afraid it’s a bit of a labyrinth, but I’ll lead the way.”

“Sure, but first...”

Evfra reached to his belt, feeling suddenly not sure if the gift was appropriate or would just communicate that he wanted to make this into a work meeting. _Too late now._ He gave Isamal the pouch in which he had put the labelled vials and waited for him to open it.

“The Mayor of Prodromos gave these to me. I figured since you said you enjoyed gardening, I should pass them on to you. You’re also experienced enough not to destroy Aya’s ecosystem with them. They’re seeds of the crops the asari, krogans, and humans plan to grow – apparently the turians eat differently. The datapad that’s in there should hold some information about them.”

Isamal’s face lit up.

“That’s remarkable,” he said, sorting through the vials as he took in the names. “Black walnut, potato, rye... to think these plants travelled from another galaxy to end up in my garden.” He laughed, delighted. “Thank you. Would you like to see where I’m going to grow them?”

“Sure,” Evfra said, undeservedly pleased with himself. He’d not picked the seeds out himself, after all, so why would he be smug?

“I claimed a greenhouse for myself many years ago, when I was still a boy,” Isamal said, as he let the pouch disappear under the folds of his robe. “I think my mothers understood I was just going to keep occupying other spaces of the house with my plants if I didn’t get to have a designated one. I admit they keep spilling out, anyway.”

“Sounds like you were born for this business.”

“It very much helps to get excited about soil consistency, though as in most jobs, the higher up you get, the less you do of what drew you there in the first place. I have very little to do with farming nowadays.” He glanced aside at Evfra. “I wonder – do you miss being out there with your troops?”

“Yes,” Evfra said without hesitation. “You have more immediate control over the situation on the battlefield. Besides, at least the adrenaline numbs you for a short time,” he added, raising a brow. “On the other hand, I doubt I could go back now. I aimed to do what I do now because it angered me how the militias and resistances couldn’t get a foot on the ground because of their lack of leadership. I know I have made many mistakes myself, but I couldn’t let the Resistance be taken from my hands yet.”

Isamal smiled as they walked down a long, open corridor with windows looking out on the old orchard.

“It’s a good thing we did not end up in the same line of work or we might clash. I’m also rather satisfied with my appointment as leader of the family and the business. I guess we’re both confident.”

“And arrogant,” Evfra added.

Isamal chuckled. “It tends to help in small doses,” he said.

Evfra did not disagree.

Another door opened into a small chamber with three further doors, labelled Greenhouse Three, Four, and Five. Isamal went for the Five and punched in the code at the door.

As it opened, light flooded into the room. The greenhouse walls were all glass but for the back, where blackened walls probably housed things that grew in caves and in the shade. Evfra looked around at what he could see. Considering Isamal’s penchant for propriety, he’d expected things to grow in neat rows, but the greenhouse was stuffed with plants, only vaguely grouped perhaps in a way to keep them from tangling in each other, leaves and vines and blossoms stretching in every direction, almost a small jungle.

“What are the partitions for?” Evfra said, glancing at the several small glass rooms at the walls of the greenhouse.

“These are to regulate different temperatures. We have Voeld here, for example.”

He led him to the right with long steps. Striding between the plants, Isamal looked content. In passing, he tugged away old leaves, tested the earth for moisture with his fingertips, and bent overhanging branches out of the way for Evfra. You could really be put in mind of an old fertility god seeing him against this backdrop.

In the big glass cube, Evfra saw Bejaanflower and Vetramtree, the bitter, hard purple leaves that topped edible Garak roots and the small, the tiny, snowflake-like flowers of Haleehan bunched around thick stems, as well as a dozen other decorative and crop plants.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen half of these outside of Voeld.”

“As I said, many Voeld plants tend to be difficult. You can never be sure of success, but handling them is very rewarding.”

Isamal glanced at Evfra with a smile that bordered on impish. Evfra huffed, secretly pleased that apparently he had not fully misread the situation, and a little flustered in a way he found difficult to handle because he’d become so unused to compliments of this nature.

“Nothing but problems with Voeldlings,” he said brusquely, hoping that it sounded at least a little like flirting, though it had probably come out too flat. “This is a Havarl biome, yes?” He looked at another glass container.

“Indeed.”

“Don’t most things that grow on Havarl grow on Aya, too? Why do they need the containment?”

“They do, but they don’t grow how they do on Havarl – which is a good thing, considering the state it was in. A few years ago, this gave me the idea to group some Havarl plants to build a theoretical ideal Havarl environment. If you step inside, you have a glimpse of what Havarl could be like without the rapid deterioration.” Isamal shook his head. “I guess I won’t need it in a few years. I’m glad for that.” His fingers pressed against the glass wall. “I admit, it always felt like a failure to me that those of us who deal in feeding and housing and tending to the population stood so powerless before our dying planets, even when keeping our people alive was our whole purpose. This was all I could do.”

“I get it,” Evfra said. “It was hard to handle. Havarl especially seemed doomed. It made me wonder sometimes how fighting the kett would help when our very homes turned against us.” With a resolute shake of his head, he looked up at Isamal. “Things are different now, though. We’ll need your expertise to make the best use of it.”

“You’re right. No point in pontificating about our sad past. Also, I’m talking on and on about plants again and I’m probably being very tedious. I promise you can tell me all of your messenger stories in turn.”

Evfra gave a wry smile.

“You’re not boring me. However, my job was never quite the passion for me that this is obviously for you. I prefer what I do now,” Evfra said, walking by Isamal’s side through the tangle of plants. “I liked it, though. Wandering the wilds of Voeld is an experience. I don’t think even looking into Haranj feels as deafening as seeing the wide white planes stretch all around you after a storm.”

“That sounds as beautiful as it does terrifying,” Isamal mused.

“It should be frightening to anyone with a head on their shoulders. It’s easy to lose one’s way and freeze to death. Still...”

“Deadly things are often fascinating,” Isamal agreed. “Many of the prettiest blossoms are poisonous.” He cocked his head. “I wonder – did you ever see the yevara? I must admit they’re a bit of a fascination for me ever since I read about them as a boy. I listened to those old recordings of their songs through all the static, too. Sadly, as an adult, I had to learn that I was not rough and tumble enough to go on an expedition to find them, like I’d dreamed I would when I was a child.”

“I have,” Evfra said quietly, “as much as anyone can these days, I suppose, since they’re locked away beneath the ice: just shapes and lights in the water.” The images came back to him, the glimmer far below. “Their tales are the only ones that survived the Scourge, so maybe that’s why it felt like looking at our history – far away and mostly obscure. Still one of the greatest things out there.” He halted. “There was that one time that I got blown off-track by a blizzard and found myself hiding in a cave under a mountain for the night. As I sat there, I heard a melody from far inside the tunnels. I followed it, thinking there may be others seeking shelter, but I only found a deep, dark pool. The next day, I saw yevara swimming outside in a frozen river that came out of the mountain range.” He shrugged. “I may have heard the wind whistling. It’s hard to tell, but...”

“You may have heard their song,” Isamal said reverently.

Evfra nodded his head. “Anyway, it was fifteen years ago and many people on Voeld imagine such things. I don’t want to set off any wild chases for nothing.”

Despite his own attempts to be realistic, though, Evfra still wanted to believe and he could see from Isamal’s solemn nod that he understood. Maybe they all needed a little hope to hold on to, even if it was something as inconsequential as the yevara not being lost to the angara yet. However, he could provide a little more than tall tales to him.

“About seeing the yevara... Now that the Resistance is not spread so thin on Voeld, we have re-established contact with a group of biologists who study them. Perhaps one day I could take you along. I’m sure you can find some reason that you need to see Voeld in person. It would eliminate the need for you to go stumbling through uncharted territory and even if we have to move some ways away from camp, I think I still know my way around. I used to come by that area back in the day.”

Isamal smiled at him with the unbridled excitement of a much younger man. It was a very good look on him, made Evfra want to see him smile like that more.

“It would be an honour to have you be my guide on Voeld. Perhaps this time we can have a more relaxed outing than on Aya.”

“Don’t worry, there are still kett on Voeld. It could all go sideways again.”

Chuckling, Isamal shook his head. “I trust you’ll protect me in that case. If it weren’t so dangerous to you, I would relish another chance to see you in action.”

“And to think you were afraid of me leaving Aya,” Evfra answered, unable to stifle a flicker of pride.

Had it been that long since someone had complimented him? No, there had been some people who were forward despite his reputation. However, Evfra had not cared about them and so their remarks had hit him like rain a steel wall.

Isamal stopped before a tree in the back of the house and Evfra did, too, looking to see what had caught Isamal’s attention. This specimen had deep, dark green leaves and fist-sized orange fruits.

“This is Dollam, the sweetener we use in most fruit paste,” Isamal said.

He plucked an especially deeply flame-coloured fruit and took a few steps to the side to rinse it under a faucet. That done, he gave the fruit to Evfra.

“You should try it.”

Evfra looked down at it. He’d sometimes been gifted home-grown raw ingredients or had gotten lucky with rationing, but he’d passed the food on to people at the Resistance whom he knew to have kids. Since he didn’t mind eating paste, he’d never felt the need to buy anything special, either. However, as he took a bite, it was hard to deny the difference. The taste was concentrated and the mealy texture and juice exploding in his mouth felt so different from a spoonful of processed food. Just having to chew made it special.

“It’s good,” he murmured, after he’d swallowed the mouthful, wiping juice off his lips with his thumb. “Don’t you want any?”

“I think it’s a bit too sweet off the tree, but I figured you would like it, given your tastes. Besides, it’s fun watching someone enjoy something you’ve grown. Technically, that is true for a lot of food going around, I suppose, but I only have a hand in that in the vaguest way... this is much more immediate.”

“If you get something out of it, perhaps I don’t have to feel bad that you’re spoiling me again?” Evfra asked, after taking another bite.

“Please. It’s just a small token of my appreciation – not matching the whole of it, I can assure you.”

Evfra lowered the fruit. This was as clear as Isamal had gotten and he could read in his face that he was hoping for an answer from Evfra. However, Evfra didn’t know what he wanted to say yet. So much rattled around in his head, and too often, he ended up saying too little in such situations. Instead, he lifted one hand to grab Isamal by the front of his robes, looking him in the eyes for silent confirmation before he pulled him down into a kiss.

Isamal opened his mouth at once. Evfra wrapped one arm tightly around Isamal’s neck and Isamal’s hands slid down his ribcage to his waist and settled there for a moment before he closed Evfra in his arms. Kissing Isamal again was something he’d imagined perhaps too often, but it was the firm embrace that left Evfra’s heart hammering. He’d missed that, too.

Their kiss was hurried at first and then slowed, though it lost nothing of its intensity. Evfra enjoyed that nothing chased them here, that he wasn’t bleeding and thinking about people with guns outside the door. Isamal’s greenhouse was a peaceful space, just as its inhabitant was a peaceful man. Evfra wondered if he should have felt more out of place, but he was only glad to be here.

Isamal’s tongue flicked out to lick his lips when he finally leaned back.

“Too sweet?” Evfra asked.

“I will bear it.” Isamal raised the hand holding the fruit to his lips and kissed Evfra’s knuckles. “Perhaps we should head to my room so we can have some privacy?”

-

The invitation had been innocent enough, but to Evfra it seemed like they both knew what would happen as soon as the door had slid silently shut behind Isamal. Still, he spent a moment to take in the room, which unsurprisingly was stuffed full of plants as well, but made some space also for a collection of datapads and a desk with too many screens.

He set his fruit down on a table and buried his fingers in Isamal’s robes again.

“Finally,” Isamal said, gently placing his hands on Evfra’s shoulders. “I have wanted this since Eos. Circumstances were less than ideal. I was worried I may have ruined my chances of a repeat with that performance.”

“I enjoyed myself,” Evfra said with a shrug.

“Well, so did I, but it’s no surprise I came away with no complaints, considering how unfazed you seemed.” He smiled. “I guess you may have a bit more experience than me with such unusual encounters on the battlefield.”

Considering what had happened between them, Evfra wasn’t surprised that Isamal would get the impression he was quick to take a chance.

“Only with the battlefield,” he simply corrected.

He did not say more than that, but it seemed like Isamal picked up on his implication. Though Evfra had worried that it would scare Isamal for what it might say about how special their connection was, after all, he only pulled Evfra closer again.

“Then we will both be on better known terrain.”

As he said so, he indicated the open doorway, releasing Evfra with one arm to lead him over with the other still draped loosely around his waist.

“How many people usually live on your bed?” Evfra asked, surveying a mattress that covered much of the back of the broad room, with thick pillows lined against the back wall.

Isamal chuckled. “That one was not my design choice. My sister thought it better suited the size of the room and for that, it is proportional – just maybe not for me. She has an eye for architecture, a true artist. One does feel its relative emptiness quite acutely, though, sleeping in it alone.”

As he spoke, he somehow had managed to put Evfra between himself and the edge of the bed without Evfra quite noticing how. He found himself thinking of the ease with which he had directed his clumsy dancer partner across the floor at the Sunburst feast.

“At least it’s more comfortable than the tarp,” he said as he sat down, grabbing Isamal’s hands to pull him along.

Going horizontal took away Isamal’s height advantage and allowed Evfra to bring him back in with a powerful pull. Isamal breathed out against his mouth as Evfra kissed him again and again and pushed away the layers of fabric to get at his body. Isamal was more lean than muscular, another diversion from the type that had ended up in Evfra’s bed back in the day, but Evfra liked how he felt under his hands, warm and wanting, and how his long limbs wound around him, how slow and thorough his kisses were. He’d not gone fully numb in the last ten years, so of course he’d at times noticed an attractive man, but he couldn’t remember so distinctly wanting to sleep with one specific person since his husband.

Gently, Evfra set the thought of Thoran aside just as it came to him. This time was for Isamal and as much as it still felt like faithlessness, it would also be unfair to Isamal for Evfra to be digging up graves in his head while he was in bed with him.

He got up to lean over Isamal and doubled his efforts to undo the various parts of Isamal’s robes, running his hands firmly over the body underneath, eager to explore its details. Isamal was busy to undoing his belt and zippers and pulled off his shirt. Evfra moved down his body with the falling cloth, kissing his way over the bone ridges of his chest and down the line of his stomach until he found hands holding him by the shoulders.

Evfra looked up and let Isamal raise him.

“It’s very easy to default to leaving you in charge, you know?” Isamal said, amused. “You are very good at it. However, I’m afraid I have to insist that it’s your time to lie back, since you’ve already indulged me last time.”

“Is the trader in you coming out?” Evfra asked. “I’m sure things needn’t be exactly balanced.”

The smile on Isamal’s face grew a little more wicked as he gently pressed Evfra down on his bed.

“No, it’s not about an even split. It’s merely that I am eager to do this to you.”

“But I’m bad at keeping my hands still,” Evfra said, not truly protesting, merely enjoying the teasing. He yanked Isamal closer to prove his point.

“Perhaps you need to be persuaded to relax.”

Close as their faces were, Evfra was seduced into another kiss and didn’t even realise what the gentle slide of cloth against his wrist was until it tugged into a loop. He looked down at it. The knot was loose still, but could be fastened with one movement.

“This is the second time you have found other uses for your robes. I’m starting to think you don’t wear them for aesthetic reasons.”

Isamal pulled the fabric tight around his wrist.

“I make use of what I have, though I must say that you started it with your rofjinn. You’re very inspiring. A little frightening, too...” With a pained smile, Isamal gently touched his upper arm where not so long ago Isamal’s robe had stilled the bleeding. “In the end, it wasn’t treated quickly enough...”

There was a deep purple furrow in Evfra’s flesh where the knife and bullet had done work on his arm.

“As you can see, it’s not my only scar,” Evfra said, using his free hand to hold Isamal’s face and make him look up again. His naked body was littered with them. “If they don’t bother you, don’t think about them.”

Isamal laughed quietly.

“Trust me, if it were only about shallow preferences, I’d say they make you look fierce.”

“There’s an advantage to everything.”

To distract him, Evfra tugged at the loop he had made around his hand. He was interested, too, how well it would hold, and to his surprise, it did not budge at all. He raised his brows at Isamal.

“That is too well done for me to be the first one to try it out.”

Isamal only smiled again and Evfra snorted, willing to let it pass. As they’d established, they both pushed to the top. The tension intrigued him, but he did not want to fight tonight, not even for play. For once, maybe he didn’t have to struggle.

“What now? Did you have anything planned or is this a bracelet?” he mocked.

“I like to wait for confirmation – or for someone to give me a reason,” Isamal told Evfra in a jovial voice. “I can tell you’re the second sort.”

With a swift movement, Isamal took the loose end his knot had left and pulled the hand up to the bed post, where he tied it down. Evfra’s other hand was simply placed down on the bed with a firm grip, squeezing it against the blanket. Perhaps he had seen Evfra experimentally testing the seat of the knot again. He seemed to notice that he was a bit too suspicious a creature to be completely tied down for now, but he was willing to play along by Isamal’s rules. Evfra kept the free hand still.

With Evfra secured to the bed frame, Isamal moved down to take hold of his trousers and underwear, which were already sitting awkwardly tight over Evfra’s hard cock. He dragged them down slowly, making Evfra hiss through his teeth as the rough hem dragged over the sensitive flesh.

When Isamal moved between his legs and kissed his thigh, Evfra expected him to take his cock into his mouth to pay him back for last time, but instead he put his hands under Evfra’s knees and gently pushed him up, and up, until only his shoulders were fully on the mattress anymore. Isamal held him suspended like that and Evfra had just opened his mouth to ask him what this was supposed to be when Isamal pressed his lips against his hole.

Isamal kissed him first, with no less languid intensity then before, and Evfra’s toes twitched. For a second, as his brain seemed to catch up with the events of tonight, he was a bit shocked to find himself laid bare and tied up for a man half an hour after he had walked into his house.

_Should have gotten timid three minutes ago._

Now was the time to make the best of the situation, which was only unexpected rather than unwanted. He flexed his stomach muscles, pulling his knees in further towards his chest, spreading himself open so Isamal had access to do what he wanted. He could feel Isamal’s wordless noise of approval as warm breath against his skin.

When Isamal finally pressed the flat of his tongue against him, Evfra breathed out deeply with relief. He doubted he’d in fact been made to wait very long, but his anticipation stretched every second. Luckily, Isamal did not seem to intend to make him wait every step of the way. When his tongue slid inside of him, Evfra heard his breath stutter.

The position was awkward, but the way it forced Evfra to keep his stomach pulled taut and his lungs compressed so he could only draw in too little air, with one arm twisted up, made his nerves tingle and respond to every touch twice as strong. Isamal’s tongue inside him was quick and deep, drawing back occasionally to tease the muscle at the rim, then plunging inside him again. Evfra could not but realise that he felt _open_ and that as much as he liked the drag of wet, warm skin, he began to want something bigger, harder inside.

“Isamal.”

Another swirl of his tongue, almost drawing out before going back in. Evfra groaned quietly, pulling creases into the blanket and welts into the skin at his wrist. Isamal shifted his head a little and sucked at the skin around his entrance, dragging another short gasp from Evfra.

He leaned back, then, very slowly letting Evfra unfold himself onto the bed, sitting so that Evfra’s backside came to rest on Isamal’s knees. Evfra took a deep breath as Isamal reached into a box by his bed to find a bottle of lube.

“There are condoms if you’d prefer that.”

Illnesses that could be transmitted this way had been all but eradicated long ago, so Isamal could only be asking because Evfra might not like him coming inside him for some reason of simple preference or more complicated emotion.

“Don’t bother, I don’t mind it in me,” he said, deliberately brash, showing his teeth. “I would have swallowed your come last time, too, you just interrupted me.”

By the slight twitch around Isamal’s brow, the way his fingers pressed into Evfra’s thigh, Evfra knew he’d hit his target.

“Very well,” Isamal just said, lifting one of Evfra’s legs again, running his hand along its length.

Evfra hooked the other over his shoulder. “This century,” he demanded.

Isamal chuckled. “I will make you wait one day,” he promised.

Tonight he was merciful, though. He slicked himself with lube before he position himself. His cock wasn’t easy to take from the first inch, thick as it was, but the stretch was good. Evfra had maybe used a finger or two on himself every once in a while, mostly had just jerked off, rarely taking time with himself. Between all the muddled feelings, there was a base carnal enjoyment in just getting fucked again by a man who knew what he was doing, and whose smile made something in his stomach twist besides.

As soon as Isamal was far enough inside him to not risk slipping all the way out, Evfra moved his hips, thrusting against him. Isamal’s fast breath turning loud enough to become a moan each time Evfra pushed himself on him was an added bonus to the feeling of spearing himself on his cock.

He let Evfra bait him, matched him in speed and intensity. However, he still had one hand tightly wrapped around Evfra’s shoulder and a flicker of concentration remained in his expression. There was passion in each movement, but nothing accidental. Evfra writhed as Isamal hammered into him, slowly making the rhythm his own and forcing Evfra to adapt, succumb to it.

With a touch to his wrist, Isamal freed Evfra’s unbound hand, holding it briefly, leading it vaguely in the direction of Evfra’s own cock, a suggestion rather than an order. However, Evfra lifted his arm, wrapping it tightly around Isamal instead. He wanted to touch himself, but more than that he wanted him closer, deeper, feel him skin on skin.

Isamal dropped his own hand instead, grabbing Evfra’s cock firmly. Together with the pressure inside him and Isamal’s body against his own, Evfra thought the world went white for a moment as he spent himself.

Apparently, Isamal had been clinging to the cliff for his benefit, considering he came with a loud gasp of relief as soon as Evfra tightened around him.

To his disappointment, Isamal did not rest against him, but sat up, gently pushing Evfra’s legs off his shoulders. He went to the bathroom, leaving the door half-opened as he washed his face and his hands and fetched a towel so no garment had to be sacrificed this time. Evfra grabbed it from him with his free hand and sat up to clean between his legs, wincing as he did.

“Are you alright?” Isamal asked as he sat down on the bed again.

Evfra waved him off with the towel. “It’s been a while.”

“May I ask how long?”

Evfra considered his thoughtful expression.

“As long as you think,” he just answered.

Isamal nodded his head and leaned over to tend to the knot around Evfra’s wrist, nimbly pulling it apart. The skin around Evfra’s wrist was a deep blue, mostly from his own struggle.

“Well, I’m glad you chose me to experiment.”

Evfra snorted. “That’s a way to put it,” he answered, flexing his hand with a meaningful glance at his wrist. He hadn’t expected this from Isamal and at the same time he wasn’t surprised. The man was no warrior, but he wielded his own authority. The idea of learning more secrets like this appealed to him.

Smiling, Isamal put the towel away and undid the knot on the bedpost, too. “I was fascinated enough by the idea of doing this to give it a try, but I admit I did not think you would let me.”

Evfra leaned next to him into the pillows and found Isamal taking his hand, carefully inspecting the slight pressure marks. Evfra let him, enjoyed the soft touches, and Isamal kept Evfra’s hand in his lap when he had satisfied himself.

“I don’t plan to allow just any man to tie me up.” Evfra shrugged his shoulders. “Don’t go shouting it from the rooftops if you can at all avoid it.”

His image had mostly fallen into place by chance at first, but he didn’t need rumours about his proclivities in the bedroom out there; stars knew people already speculated more than Evfra liked. It would hardly be accurate to expect him to yield to anyone, either. Evfra only felt comfortable not being in charge when he trusted the other person could hold their own. He did not have that trust in many.

“Obviously I’ll be discrete,” Isamal said.

They sat in silence for another moment. Evfra realised they were basically holding hands. He gave himself a push.

“Now that you’ve fully cracked me, is there any interest left?” he asked bluntly.

Isamal levelled the same reproachful gaze at him that had set his younger relatives straight at the Sunburst feast.

“Please. I wasn’t here for the challenge,” he said. “I knew long before Eos that I wanted to get to know you better.”

“Really?” Evfra asked, surprised. “I don’t remember being particularly charming to you.”

“Your charm is related to the fact that you don’t need to try at all to leave an impression,” Isamal said.

“I see your eloquence isn’t restricted to subtle politicking at the Grand Debates,” Evfra answered, though he felt a smile tug at the corner of his mouth. Somehow, Isamal could make sweet-talking sound honest.

It seemed like Isamal could tell Evfra was not wholly disinclined

“I’d hoped to make better use of it, actually. When you asked me to come along to Eos, I was excited that we would get a chance to talk in private.” He gave a sheepish smile. “I got a little more of that than I bargained for.”

“That didn’t warn you off, either?” Evfra joked.

Isamal leaned into him. Evfra realised he needn’t have been disappointed that he had not stayed with him after they had finished. Evfra would have needed such an excuse to nestle against him; Isamal did not.

“Trust me, Eos was not the sort of performance a man who is already partial would have a hard time admiring. Leave me some respect and don’t make me repeat my fawning.”

Evfra snorted and gave him a kiss instead. Isamal stroked over the ridges of his head with his thumb.

“As pleasant as it is to have you in my bed, I think we’re both old enough that you will forgive me for making my intentions clear,” Isamal said as he leaned back. “I am quite serious about this. I don’t need an immediate answer from you. I know you probably want time. I just want you to keep it in mind.”

“I had time,” Evfra said quietly. He’d had ten years. “I can’t promise you I will make a very good partner. You could call me out of practice.”

“No one can be sure of how their feelings will develop,” Isamal said with a smile, reading behind Evfra’s words. “I know that well. As long as you’ll give me a chance, I am quite content.”

“You have more than a chance already or I wouldn’t waste your time.”

Somehow, he had not thought that his admission would make Isamal’s smile as brightly as it did. Well, it seemed Isamal had a crush on him. Why wouldn’t he be happy? And why was Evfra’s heartbeat so fast?

He kissed Isamal again and then they kept kissing, petting each other lazily. There was no intent behind the movements but to enjoy each other’s presence. Evfra allowed his thoughts to slow for a moment and focus only on Isamal’s hands on him.

“Will you spend the night?” Isamal asked.

“Why not? You do have space for me...”

“Let me get you an extra blanket, too,” Isamal said, nuzzling against his cheek before he got up.

Evfra swung his legs over the side of the bed, too. After a brief trip to the bathroom to clean up his own hands and face, he headed out of the room, ignoring Isamal’s questioning gaze. When he returned, he was taking a bite of the fruit that he had abandoned by the entrance.

“Would be a shame to let it go to waste. You’ll have to deal with the taste for now.”

Evfra clambered back onto the bed and Isamal greeted him with a kiss.

“I will be happy to get used to it.”

-

“Perhaps I should have borrowed some of your robes instead.”

Isamal looked Evfra up and down and smiled. There was a glint in his eyes as he touched Evfra gently on the shoulder.

“I think the uniform suits you perfectly.”

“That useless thing...”

“If you could wear your real armour to a function, you know I would also be delighted,” Isamal said with an impertinent smile. “However, I find this suggestion of it just as handsome.”

Evfra rolled his eyes. “Very courteous of you to be complimenting me when we know you will outshine us all again.”

In his celebratory robes, Isamal was resplendent as usual. Evfra had only now gotten a chance to talk to him, though, as the function they found themselves at had a small dance floor as well, where Isamal had been whisked away by people who had been promised dances at prior social engagements of this kind.

“Anyone else who needs your attention tonight?” he asked, looking over to the twirling pairs.

“No, I don’t think so,” Isamal said. “I hope you weren’t feeling neglected.”

“I am wearing this get-up because you wanted to see it again, so if you’d left without taking a look, I may have just thrown it out tonight,” Evfra said, crossing his arms over his chest. “I guess you like the uniforms of the others as well? You’re lucky it’s fun to watch you dance.”

He was only playing the jealous boyfriend. There was some entertainment to it, Evfra could not but admit. He’d found that aside from the earth-shaking emotions and philosophical thoughts, he enjoyed all the small things that came with the relationship they’d had for two months now: the right to tease his partner like this, to occupy his attention in a brief moment of shared pauses they had between appointments, to come close enough to let shoulders touch when they sat reading their separate work messages together on the bed, the conversations that arose over the communicator at midnight when they were both not out of the office. He liked the small gifts Isamal would give him, food and items he thought missing in Evfra’s empty home, not so much for their material value but for the fact that Isamal had fun giving them to him. He liked being with Isamal.

Apparently, even his battered old heart could still enjoy being in love. Evfra had worked up the honesty to call it as much to himself only a week ago.

“If you’d dance with me, I would have eyes for no one else, no matter how much they asked,” Isamal pointed out.

“If I’d dance with you, all of Aya, including your family, would probably realise what we are doing when nobody is looking.”

“So – do you want to dance with me?”

Isamal was smiling, holding out his hand in a way that may have only been a gesture if you looked on from outside, again allowing Evfra to choose their path.

“One dance can’t hurt,” he said, glancing at his hand, then taking it with a resolute grasp.

Isamal chuckled at the firm clutch.

“I’m a bad dancer,” Evfra warned.

“If I didn’t know how to make bad dancers look good, not half as many people would want to dance with me,” Isamal said, raising a brow.

Evfra grinned.

Isamal pulled him close to a beat of the music and though Evfra knew all eyes were on them, he decided to shut out the world for this one dance and only look at Isamal.


End file.
